
Class 






Book 



Copyiight^I^. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



Handling the Hog 



From Start to Finish 



By ** Westerner 



>> 



Butchers Advocate Co, 

No. 203 Broadway 

New York 






-1 



Copyrighted. 1910 

by Butchers Advocate Co. 

New York, N. Y. 



0' 



y 




1 



eC!.A268574 



CHAPTER I. 

Handling Hogs on Arrival at the Yards — 
The Gutting — Saving the Bung — Fac- 
ing THE Ham — The Use of Hog Heads — 
The Hearts and Tongues. 

Every packinghouse man has read so many 
articles on the subject of killing, cutting and 
the different methods of curing hogs that it 
would seem superfluous to open up the matter 
again, but there are new men taking hold al- 
most every week, and if the method advanced 
in this book tallies with their method of han- 
dling, it will give them more confidence, and 
consequently they will turn out better work. 
But, let's get down to business and see how 
simple the work is — so simple that, in the case 
of the curing, the department head should 
never allow a vat or tierce to go wrong in 
any way ; that is, not to allow his pickle in the 
vat to get "ropy" or sour, and to be possessed 
of a full knowledge at all times of how his 



4 HANDLING THE HOG 

meat is in the vat, which, in the case of hams, 
can be gained by his thirty-day inspection. In 
the same way, should a tierce go "dry" he 
should be aware of it, and when his tierce stock 
is getting old and perhaps the temperature 
poor, his pickle (sweet) will become thick, 
which later on will sour his meat. Foremen 
ought to look after all this, but on the depart- 
ment head will fall the blame of anything go- 
ing wrong, and in cases such as this there 
is no excuse for him, but later on this particu- 
lar part will be taken up more fully. 

On the arrival of the hogs in the house from 
the "yards" they are turned over to the su- 
perintendent of the killing department, whose 
man will see that they are watered and that 
his house is not too crowded, and that he picks 
out any tired hogs from the lot. These and 
cripples should be killed at once, as it is not 
good policy taking chances on their getting 
better. Instead they very often become worse, 
and any little bunching of the hogs causes 
them to easily smother. 

Driving to the shackling pens should be 
done as quickly as possible, though at times 
this is a hard matter when you are killing fast ; 



HANDLING THE HOG 5 

but, at least in the shackling pen, the shackler 
should not los6 his temper because he misses 
a hog a couple of times, and to get even strikes 
the hog with the shackle across the head or 
over the back, probably spoiling it afterward. 
They will do it though, if not closely watched. 

The work of the sticker does not call for 
any comment further than that his work should 
be clean and thorough, no excuse being taken 
for "shoulder-stuck" hogs, and he will also see 
that the "sticking bar" is kept full, so that his 
hogs will be done kicking long before they get 
to the "dropper," v/ho otherwise should wait 
till they are dead. 

Next in line comes the "tub," and so cramped 
are some houses that they have not room for 
a scalding tub of proper length, or else they do 
not attach the importance to it which it really 
deserves. Possibly the only person consulted 
in its construction was the master mechanic 
or boss carpenter ; very good men in their way, 
but very poor at hog killing and its require- 
ments. 

Any scalding tub carrying 500 or more hogs 
per hour should be 35 to 40 feet long, though 
I have seen a tub 28 feet long carrying 700 



6 HANDLING THE HOG 

per hour. This was wrong, decidedly wrong, 
but there was no help for it and no way out of 
it at the time. The result of having such a 
short tub with such a large carrying capacity 
was that the water had to be carried at 150 
degrees F., and if the slightest thing went 
wrong the scraping machine had to be stopped ; 
you had a lot of over-scalded, or, worse still, 
a lot of "burnt" hogs," which need no descrip- 
tion. With a 40-foot tub carrying the same 
number per hour the water could be carried at 
140 degrees F., which would give a better and 
clearer scald than the higher temperature. 

This 40-foot tub would, to do the work prop- 
erly, require five men, besides the scalder, but 
with the aid of a mechanical device four of 
these men could be dispensed with, leaving 
only the man "pulling out of the hole" from 
the dropper and the scalder on the tub. 

This device is two endless chains fitted on 
the tub, one on each side connected by bars, 
on which are four fingers, which drag the hogs 
along in the tub and also keep the backs un- 
der the water. There is one set of these rods 
or fingers longer than all the rest, and they 
sweep within a few inches of the bottom of 



HANDLING THE HOG 7 

the tub, so that it is impossible to have any 
''sinkers." The whole is driven from overhead 
with a chain and sprocket wheel. 

The scalding tub should be so placed that 
it would be at right angles to the bristle bench. 
The reason for this is that when the hog falls 
off the *'throw-off" he lands right in line for 
''hooking on." The other way, the bristle 
bench and tub being in line, the hog on being 
thrown out, lays right across the former and 
has to be turned straight by a man known as 
the "roller" before the man can "hook on." 

It is an awfully hard job, and a man to fill 
the place is hard to get, as few men can stand 
the scalding hot water on the hands, even 
though they have a bucket of cold water to 
plunge their hands in. However, the scalding 
tub at right angles to the bristle bench is en- 
tirely the better plan. 

The principal men on the bench proper are 
the "header" on one side with the man "hook- 
ing off" and the "string cutter" and the 
"hanger on" on the other side. 

Right after the hogs are hung on the rail 
is where the head of the department has to 
keep his eyes open, if he would make the show- 



8 HANDLING THE HOG 

ing required of him, and this is where the clean- 
ing of the hog is finished. With a low tempera- 
ture scald and a brush or two on the rail, with 
a good flow of water in the sprinklers, the hog 
will look clean and bright when the last shaver 
passes his knife over him, and there cannot 
be too much water up to this stage. There 
may be a man or two with a hand scraper on 
the rail, and there will also be the ham shavers, 
and a man who can run the entire day and 
give the knife the dexterous turn required on 
the ham without cutting the skin, is indeed 
a prize. All the shaving must be done with- 
out cuts, but the hams more than any part. 
If the skin of the hog is not properly cleaned 
on the killing floor it cannot be done again, 
as no amount of scrubbing will give it the 
same look that could have been secured on 
the killing floor. 

Leaving the shavers, we come to the gutters. 
This work, in some houses, is done differently 
to what it was some years ago. Instead of a 
gutter standing in front of his hog to take out 



HANDLING THE HOG 9 

the crown of the bung gut, it is "dropped" 
by a man standing at the back of the hog and • 
'well over the hams, so that he can see the 
cut he is making. To start this properly, fur- 
ther up the rail a man was placed who opened 
the aitch, then a man who opened the breast 
bone, and then another who started opening 
the belly by commencing at the top of the 
breast bone, which had already been opened, 
and, putting his hand inside, with the knife 
blade outside the hog and opening upward un- 
til he went into the cut made by the man open- 
ing the aitch. 

The object of opening the belly in this way 
is that the knife does not go inside, and there- 
fore none of the small guts are cut. It may 
look expensive, but when you figure that, open- 
ing a hog in the ordinary way a man will cut 
30 per cent of the small guts, the other way 
will give you such a return that the expense 
is easily covered. The hog then is opened, 
when it goes to the man who stands at the 
back and "drops" the crown of the bung, and 



10 HANDLING THE HOG 

a "snatcher" completes the gutting. I have 
known gutters in the old way to save 95 to 98 
per cent of bung guts, and there is no reason 
why a better percentage should not be made 
in the new style, as the man can see the cut 
he is making, while in the old way he could 
not. 

This method of saving the bung gut origi- 
nated, or was put into practice at a time when 
the gutters went on strike for 50 cents per 
hour. They were getting 45 cents. They were 
refused, and this method was adopted, as it 
is so simple that any one who can use a knife 
can easily do it. Previous to this the gutters 
had a good deal more of their own way than 
was healthy for the house. They were high- 
priced men, and the rest of the "gang" looked 
up to them, but this is all changed in some 
of the big houses. The percentage of bungs 
saved was made in primes and exports, and, 
of course, had to be handled just as carefully 
by the "puller," the "trimmer" and the 



HANDLING THE HOG ii 

''turner," either of whom could spoil the care 
given by the gutter. 

All of this the department head must look 
after, or else he will not get the results I men- 
tion. The "puller" will "crack" the gut in 
pulling or in skinning it, the trimmer will 
"scar" it with his knife, though, strange as it 
may seem, the "scar" given by the gutter to a 
bung gut crown can be easily distinguished 
from that made by the trimmer. Then again 
the turner may crack the gut in stripping or 
turning it, or he may force the water so hard 
through it that it will become covered with 
blisters. All of these causes will prevent your 
bung from becoming a "prime" or "export," 
which means a lot in a day's killing of, say, 
six to seven thousand hogs, when you figure 
prime bungs at from 53^ to 7 cents and "ex- 
ports" 7 to 10 cents each. 

These results can be obtained and main- 
tained if properly looked after and the depart- 
ment head is possessed of the necessary execu- 
tive ability. If not, he is up against a "hard 



12 HANDLING THE HOG 

bunch," as I do not know of any lot of men 
who will more quickly take advantage of any 
weakness shown by the "boss" than a large 
hog gang. I recall one instance where the 
head of a hog-killing department in one of 
the large houses was transferred, promoted to 
another department, leaving behind him as 
good and as orderly a lot of men as in any 
house in the country. It took the gang only 
a very short time to find out the weak spots in 
the new man, to such an extent that the house 
had to get another man in his place. 

After the bung gut is pulled from the "set" 
of guts, they pass on to the "paunch trimmer," 
who takes off the caul, pluck and paunch, trim- 
ming the latter closely of fat, leaving only the 
large and small intestines behind, which are 
then passed on to the "small gut pullers," after 
the man cuts off the giblet meat. The small 
guts are pulled into barrels,- the ends being left 
hanging outside, so that the strippers can easily 
handle them. A good puller with ordinary care 
will pull the full length of the gut, 150 to 200 



HANDLING THE HOG 13 

feet, without breaking, unless they are wrong, 
when it is almost impossible to pull without 
breaking. It is false economy to run this gang 
short, or, in other words, to give them too 
much to do, eight hundred sets in ten hours 
being sufficient for a man to do. 

The intestines which are left are known as 
the ''black guts" and are cut by machine, or 
hashed, and washed thoroughly. After wash- 
ing they will be found to average 3 3-5th lbs. 
to the hog and will yield in lard i i-5th lbs. 
per hog. These figures will, if tested, be found 
accurate, though, of course, the yield will de- 
pend largely on the manner in which it is 
cooked. 

Next will come the ham facer and the lard 
puller. In facing the ham the man will make 
one clean cut and he will also "drop" the flank 
on each side. The lard puller will generally 
leave a small piece of lard around the "skirt," 
which should be removed by a man with a 
"scraper." Just here the "splitters" come in, 
the sides of the hogs being hooked together 



14 HANDLING THE HOG 

so as to hold them open. The splitter must 
come down through the center of the backbone, 
dividing the hog evenly, showing the bone per- 
fectly smooth on each side. Should any hogs 
require to be "marked," or have the backbones 
raised, it will be done just after they leave the 
gutters. The tongueing will be done and the 
heads cut off before they come to the splitters. 
The necks should be washed at this stage with 
a spring nozzle hose and a brush, and imme- 
diately afterward the shanks may be sawed 
and cracked, as it helps to chill the ham. 

Hog heads are generally used for the can- 
ning room and are shaved by piece work. The 
shaving of these heads intended for brawn must 
not be confounded with the shaving of market 
heads. In the former the jowls are removed 
— in fact, everything is cut away except the 
cheek meat and the snout, the lower jaw being 
pulled so that there will be less chance of 
loose teeth being mixed up among the meat 
in cooking, as they are prone to fall out. When 
the heads are tanked for lard they should be 



HANDLING THE HOG 15 

made equally as clean as when used for brawn, 
and should be "cheeked" and also the "poll 
meat" taken off. The latter is a piece of meat 
on the back of the head, where it is connected 
with the cervical vertebrae; the head is then 
split and washed and will yield around 55 per 
cent in lard. 

The paunches or stomachs are entirely 
cleared of fat that was left by the paunch 
trimmer, and then turned and washed and the 
inner lining skinned off, which is sent to the 
pepsin factory. The pancreas or sweetbread 
is also pulled and trimmed of fat and also sent 
to the pepsin factory. Plucks are trimmed and 
livers and hearts sent to the coolers after they 
have been washed, though the former should 
not be allowed to soak in water; in fact, the 
less water they come in contact with, the bet- 
ter for them, and they should be in such a 
shape coming from the paunch trimmer that 
they merely require a dip and a rub with the 
hand in clean water. The hearts ought to be 
well washed and purged of the clotted blood 
by pressure of the hands. Tongues should be 



i6 HANDLING THE HOG 

thrown into cold water and washed with a 
brush to remove slime, trimmed and then 
thrown into ice water, from where they are 
taken to the cellar, as they make a truck load, 
and hung up singly on racks in a temperature 
of 39 or 40 degrees F. Bladders are trimmed 
and thrown into cold water and are generally 
sold under contract at 25 to 30 cents per 100 — 
not very much, but on, say, a 6,000 kill it will 
mean $15 to $18, with only an expenditure 
of $1.75 for the trimmer to be deducted. In 
cheeking heads, great care must be taken of 
the cheek meat, as if piled too long in a barrel 
into which it is thrown it will sour very quick- 
ly. Some of the smaller houses do not pay at- 
tention to this, and do not seem to mind that 
heavy smell v/hich is characteristic of hot trim- 
mings piled together, especially cheek meat, 
and which is the first stage of sourness, as also 
of putrefaction if allowed to continue. Some 
comfort themselves with the idea that it is all 
right if they use a lump of ice in the barrel or 
throw the cheeks into ice water. This is 



HANDLING THE HOG 17 

wrong, entirely wrong, as in either case there 
is water which draws the extract out of the 
meat. The only remedy for this case is fre- 
quent deliveries to the chill room with the 
meat, where it should be spread out on racks 
for the purpose. 



i8 HANDLING THE HOG 



CHAPTER II. 

The Hanging Floor — Importance of Perfect 
Ventilation — Difference Between 
"Hard'" and "Firm'" Hogs — Proper Chill- 
ing AS Preventative of Sour. 

After the hogs leave the killing floor their 
first resting place is the hanging floor, and 
here is where the initial step is taken in curing, 
unless the temperature is very low; in fact, 
under certain climatic conditions, if the hang- 
ing floor was large enough to accommodate 
the whole kill so as to leave them there till all 
the animal heat had passed away, there would 
be no sour hams, but unfortunately in the east- 
ern and middle States those conditions are not 
always such that you can leave the hogs out on 
the hanging floor all night, as can be done in 
the western and coast States. The nights are 



HANDLING THE HOG 19 

too warm, or, mayhap, too damp, in either 
case souring the meat; or, again, the tempera- 
ture may fall to zero, making your hogs as hard 
as rocks, so that, after a couple of hours, the 
hogs are run into the chill room. If there is a 
good ventilation in this chill room and all the 
steam arising from the hogs is allowed to pass 
away, you are safe enough; but if there is poor 
ventilation or the ventilators are closed, allow- 
ing the steam to condense on the ceiling and 
then fall back on the "shanks" and hams, you 
are going to have "sour marrows." The theorists 
who make the assertion, "Oh, that's all right; 
the refrigeration will take up all the steam," 
never stayed in a hog chill room when it was 
filling with newly killed hogs, or in the pipe room 
and observed the action of the steam and its con- 
densation. The refrigeration can do nothing of 
the kind, as by the time it would get in shape to 
do so the steam would have condensed and 
fallen back on the hogs in the form of water. 
Keep the ventilators open and allow the steam 
which will arise to pass out, and your room to 



20 HANDLING THE HOG 

become perfectly clear; then shut your ventila- 
tors, and the chances are that your hams will 
be sweet when cured. 

A great source of trouble, though it does not 
seem to be realized, in connection with hog chill 
rooms is that they are kept too cold. Hogs when 
ready to cut do not require to be hard; they 
should be firm, and if only firm after 48 hours 
in the chill room, they vs^ill have received a bet- 
ter chilling than if they came out hard to the 
cutting floor, from the fact that in the latter 
case, through the intense cold, the outside of the 
meat — hams especially — was solidified to such an 
extent that the animal heat was completely seal- 
ed up, and while, of course, it was chilling, it 
took a longer time for the heat to pass away 
than if a higher temperature was used. 

In writing of hogs being firm, as against hogs 
being hard, the former expression must not be 
construed in such a manner as to leave the in- 
ference that soft and sloppy hogs are meant. 
I have seen hogs hanging out all night in a 
temperature of 45° F. and next day shoved into 



HANDLING THE HOG 21 

a chill room in a temperature of 34° I^., in which 
they were held for 24 hours, which, with the 
time they were on the hanging floor, made 36 
hours for some of them (the latter part of the 
kill) and then cut, and there was no trace of 
heat in the hams. On the other hand, I have 
seen hogs hanging two hours on a hanging floor 
and then put into a temperature of 28° to 30° 
F. after the room had steadied down and kept 
there 40 to 46 hours. The hogs were then cut 
and the hams and shoulders and ''calas" hung in 
a hanging room which was at 32° F., and after 
hanging there 36 hours the temperature of the 
20 to 24 hams was 2° to 3° F. higher than the 
temperature of the room, all due to the heavy 
cold in the chill room, which sealed up any out- 
let for the heat to work out quickly. 

While the packing industry has flourished and 
we have got hams and bacon cured so mildly 
that the taste of salt is almost imperceptible, we 
cannot but admit that on the farm there have 
been cured some good hams and bacon also, and 
if not so mild as the fancy goods of the pack- 



22 HANDLING THE HOG 

ing house of to-day, still they were more free 
of "sour shanks" and "sour bodies" in their 
hams than in the most up-to-date curing depart- 
ment, simply because their hog was chilled prop- 
erly, or, at least, all trace of animal heat had 
passed away quickly before the hog was cut up 
to go into cure, and in what time? The farmer 
did not, nor does not, wait 48 to 'J2 hours for his 
hog to chill unless he is occupied with something 
else and cannot get around to it. If he has 
nothing else that requires his attention, that hog 
will be in pickle 24 hours after killing — in 
pickle "strong enough to float a potato," and will 
come out "sweet." This strength pickle would, 
I should judge, be a saturated solution. There 
is no great credit due to this man for this, for 
he really knows very little if anything about the 
passing away of animal heat, or what effect it 
would have on his meat had it remained there 
till he "packed" it down in pickle. He has not 
experimented on the matter; he simply does 
what he saw his father doing, or his neighbor's 
father, and he comes out right every time, while 



HANDLING THE HOG 23 

in the great packing houses, where enormous 
sums are yearly spent in experiments, the best 
they have arrived at in preparing a hog to go 
into pickle is to put it into a prepared room, 
and as quickly as possible get that room down as 
cold as they can — so cold that it seals up every 
vent by which the inside heat could make its way 
out, with the result that there are a good many 
''sour bodies" and a great many ''shank sours," 
from which the department head tries to wriggle 
cut, on presenting his 30-day inspection sheet, 
by giving as an excuse that there were "fresh 
hogs" killed in that "packing." 

He doesn't seem to know the real reason, and 
is willing to put up the "fresh hog" bugaboo. 
Some of the uninitiated may wonder what "fresh 
hogs" are. They are hogs just driven from the 
"yards" and killed right away without resting, 
and supposed by many to be in such a feverish 
condition that the meat would not come out of 
cure "sweet." Chill those hogs properly after 
killing and leave no trace of animal heat in them 



24 HANDLING THE HOG 

before putting into pickle, and they will come 
out sweet as any other. 

When I make the statement that on the farm 
they have no sour hams, I do so reservedly, as 
there may be individual cases where the man 
neglects the meat ; but in general, the farmer has 
no sour meat in w^hat he kills and cures, and it is 
principally due to the natural chilling in the 
open air that he has not. 

Some of my readers who have not the sub- 
ject well in hand may say perhaps it is the 
pickle which he uses that brings such good re- 
sults, from its strength. Not so, as a weaker 
or lighter pickle will enter the meat quicker than 
the strong pickle, caused by the density of the 
latter. The entire freedom from sourness of the 
hams and bacon cured on the farm is due to 
the manner in which the hog is chilled after 
killing — chilled so that the animal heat from the 
inside passes away as quickly as the outer part 
cools, until all the heat expends itself, and all 
this takes place in a pure air in circulation. 

This method could not be adopted in the pack- 



HANDLIxNG THE HOG 25 

ing house, owing to the large number killed ; but 
the chill rooms could be managed differently 
when the hogs are put in "hot." The room 
could, with a little attention on the part of the 
chill-room man, be kept free from the rising 
steam, and afterwards there could be a circula- 
tion of air with a much higher temperature, 
which would give much better results, whether 
the system be "brine pipes," "direct expansion" 
or any other form of refrigeration. A circula- 
tion of air in the chill room would cause a 
greater shrinkage in the hog, but this would not 
matter much, as the greater part of the cutting 
is going into pickle, where it will gain in weight. 
With this we will give the hogs an opportunity 
to chill and get ready to be cut up after 48 to ']2 
hours in the rooms, unless the house was very 
short on loins, when, to fill orders, they will cut 
hogs at 24 hours. 



26 HANDLING THE HOG 



CHAPTER III. 

The Hog Cutting Floor — Description of 
Different Cuts- — How New York, Bos- 
ton AND Other Shoulders are Made — 
The Various Middles. 

The hog cutting floor is a very long subject, 
if gone into properly, as there are a "thousand 
and one" different "cuts," but though it is so 
necessary an adjunct and so long established, 
there are very few in a packing house who are 
familiar with those cuts outside of hams, shoul- 
ders and loins, except those men who work or 
have worked there and others whose part in the 
affairs of the house bring them in direct com- 
munication with it; so I will, for the benefit 
of readers who are not "sure of their footing" 
in this particular line, explain some of it. 



HANDLING THE HOG 27 

The principal man on the bench or table is 
the chopper, and on his ability and aptitude for 
work depends the speed at which the ^'cutting" 
is done. His duty, as the side falls on the bench 
from the rail, is to chop off the ham and shoul- 
der and the feet from these, when the ham, 
shoulder and side are passed along the bench for 
further manipulation. For domestic use the 
short-cut ham is nearly always made unless on 
some special order. In making it, the chopper, 
when chopping off the foot, did so a little above 
the joint, so that the marrow was exposed; the 
ham was faced full on the killing floor, nicely 
rounded at the butt, which should be in length 
from the aitch bone, three fingers in width; the 
flank should be left full, so that there will be 
room for shrinking in "smoke." If the flank is 
trimmed close on the cutting floor, the result is 
that, when it comes out of "smoke," the skin 
on this part will have shrunk away toward the 
back of the ham, and the house, in addition to 
this unsightly appearance, will have lost from 
one pound to one and a half pounds of meat, 



28 HANDLING THE HOG 

which should have been left on the flank, but 
went into trimmings and lard. 

The shoulder may be made into a cala, picnic, 
a Boston shoulder, a New York shoulder, a 
square or three-rib shoulder or a regular shoul- 
der. 

The New York shoulder usually, when made, 
averages lo to 12 pounds, and are made from 
smooth-skinned, clean hogs, the shank cut off a 
little above the knee joint, not so wide as the 
regular shoulder. The cala or picnic shoulders 
are made from heavier hogs, as also is the Bos- 
ton shoulder, to which it bears a resemblance ex- 
cept that the latter is a lighter cut, and cut nearly 
square at the butt insead of being nicely rounded 
like the picnic shoulder. The lean piece of meat 
which is trimmed from the butt of these shoul- 
ders is known as cala butts, Boston butts, 
sausage meat^ etc. 

The square shoulder is also clear and smooth, 
averages 12 to 16 pounds; they are cut three 
ribs wide, with the shank cut off close above 
the knee joint, square butt. 



HANDLING THE HOG 29 

The regular shoulder may be made from a 
rougher hog, and will run from 14 to 20 pounds 
— a little wider than the New York, with a 
square butt and the shank at the knee joint. 

New York shoulders are also skinned — that is, 
the skin is taken off as far as the shank and the 
excess fat removed. The fat is removed from 
the butt of the shoulder till only a thin shaving 
remains, while there is very little taken off 
further up. 

Hams are skinned in the same way — that is, 
the heavier averages. The ham is laid on a block 
for the purpose, skin uppermost, shank towards 
the man who is skinning, and with a semi-circular 
knife, known as a ''draw knife," he starts at the 
butt of the ham, taking all or nearly all the fat 
there, but as he cuts through with a sawing mo- 
tion he raises his hand so that very little fat is 
taken off the back; he continues the skinning 
close to the shank, when the ham presents a nice- 
ly rounded appearance, having lost about 14 
per cent, of fat and skin. 



30 HANDLING THE HOG 

Sometimes there is a demand for light skinned 
hams, say i6 pounds, but generally skinned hams 
are made from i8 to 20 pounds average and up, 
all averages, of course, being kept separate from 
the time the hams are assorted at the green meat 
chutes, passing through the various stages till 
they are shipped in sweet pickle or ^'smoked." 
The heaviest regular hams, unless in something 
special, are 18 to 20 pounds average. 

The side which has been taken away after the 
ham and shoulder was chopped off may be con- 
verted into several different cuts. Just as it 
stands it would be what is known as a "short 
rib" or "short rib middle," "rough rib" if the 
backbone is left in and "regular short rib" if it 
is removed. Take the ribs out and free it entire- 
ly of bone, and it is a "short clear"; remove 
the loin and it is then an "extra short clear." 
It will also make either a rib or clear back, a 
regular or clear loin, fat back, belly, rib or clear. 
There is another cut which is similar to the 
short rib; that is the "English short rib," only 



HANDLING THE HOG 31 

that it is cut shorter and is trimmed square, 
while the "regular short rib" is not, unless un- 
der some special agreement of the purchaser or 
wish of the house. The "English short rib" is 
an export cut, and calls for good, clean-looking 
hogs; it is made by cutting a square shoulder 
and a long cut ham off the side. There are also 
"long rib" and "long clears"; they consist of the 
shoulder and side, and in the case of the "long 
rib" the backbone, blade and knuckle bones are re- 
moved, as also the shoulder and neck bones, with, 
of course, the ribs left in; the leg is cut off close 

and it is trimmed square at each end. The "long 
clear" is made in the same way, and, as the 
name implies, is cleared of bone and rib; "extra 
long clears" are made the same as the last 
named, only in addition the loin is taken out. 

The "Cumberland" or "Cumberland middles" 
are much the same as "long rib middles," both 
being export cut, except the Cumberland is 
heavier and the leg, instead of being cut off close 
to the side, is cut off at the knee joint. 



32 HANDLING THE HOG 

The Yorkshire middle is like the long clear, 
except that the leg is sawed off half-way between 
the knee joint and the side, and that it is of a 
lighter average — 40 pounds — while the ''long 
clear" is about 40 to 60 pounds. The "Wilt- 
shire" or Wiltshire side is also an export cut, 
and is the whole side of the hog with the legs, 
both of shoulder and ham, cut off at the joint; 
neck bones, shoulder ribs and backbone taken 
out; trimmed square across at the shoulder. 

There are numerous other cuts, but not in 
general use, and unless on an order from abroad, 
as they are nearly all exported, are rarely made. 
Some of the cuts described are not in the de- 
mand that they were formerly for export. 

Aless pork is made from the sides of rough 
hogs, leaving the ham off, and are chopped cross- 
wise. Prime mess is also the whole side with the 
ham off and is chopped lengthwise and again 
chopped crosswise into five or six pieces. 



HANDLING THE HOG 33 



CHAPTER IV. 

Handling of Meat and its Preparation for 
Cure — How to Avoid No. 2 Hams — All 
Hams Will Cure Alike if Properly 
Treated at Every Stage. 

The hams, vi^hen chopped off, or, in some 
cases, sawed off, are dropped from the trimming 
table on the cutting floor by means of chutes that 
are known as the "green meat chutes"; in close 
proximity to these chutes is the "green meat" 
inspector, who handles every ham and inspects 
it, and then throws it into the box to which it 
belongs. He picks out the smoothest and clean- 
est looking of these for his fancy grade, keeping, 
of course, the different averages separate. The 
next grade will be his No. i or regular hams. He 
will pick out those which are especially rough or 



34 HANDLING THE HOG 

"staggy" and put them with the hams which are 
to be skinnedj no matter what the average may 
be of the rough ham. The skin bruised hams 
should also be put with the hams to be skinned. 
His "cushion" and "loin-bruised" hams are 
turned over to the sausage room. In this way 
there will not be any No. 2 hams put into cure 
as there would be if not treated in this way, and 
No. 2 hams are anything but a profitable invest- 
ment and will not be tolerated by any superin- 
tendent who understands the business. 

The green meat inspector Vv^ill go through 
those hams so rapidly, catching every one and 
turning them all around, scrutinizing them close- 
ly, that an onlooker, unacquainted with the work, 
would not believe that he was giving a close in- 
spection. I can especially mention the case of 
two men who did this work, and the instances 
when a ham fit for the fancy grade would be 
found among the regular hams after their in- 
spection and grading were very rare, and either 
of these men could handle the hams from the 
cutting of 6,000 to 6,500 hogs per day. This part 



HANDLING THE HOG 35 

of the work would, in a large house, if properly 
classified, belong to the sweet pickle department. 

The hams, as they are graded and averaged, 
are taken to the scale and from there into the 
hanging room, where they are hung up for 
further chilling, though under certain conditions 
there is no reason why those hams should not 
be put into cure immediately after being "scaled,'^ 
but more of this later on. 

The hams are allowed to remain in this hang- 
ing room, hung on "trees" (than which no bet- 
ter form of chilling can possibly be had for 
"cuts"), from 24 to 72 hours, dependent on the 
state of the hogs when cut and the average of 
the hams. This seems an awfully long time to 
waste, as previous to this the hogs (before being 
cut) were hanging in a chill room for 48 hours. 

Some houses may differ a little from this, but 
in the main this is correct v/here they do not 
"pack" from the "chutes," which from the ordi- 
nary method of refrigeration can only be done 
under certain climatic conditions, though there 
is no reason that can be put forward why it 



36 HANDLING THE HOG 

should not be done in all cases if the refrigera- 
tion is handled differently. I know of one in- 
stance where the plan of "packing" from the 
chutes was adopted and the result was that near- 
ly half of the hams came out of "cure" sour, so 
the experiment was tried no further. There was 
no success in this particular case, simply because 
no change was made in the mode of chilling. I 
have known other houses to "pack" from the 
"chutes," and they may be doing so still with 
good results; but climatic conditions are differ- 
ent there to what they were in the house that 
made the failure of it. 

The reader will remember the incident of the 
farmer killing and curing his hogs described in 
Chapter II; no refrigeration was used in his 
case, only a chilling by natural means, so as to 
allow the animal heat to pass away. Still, his 
meat was "sweet." Then why all this refrigera- 
tion over a period of ^2 to 120 hours? Why all 
the extra expense of rehandling from "green 
meat chutes" to hanging room and from there 
again to "cure," instead of taking the meat direct 



HANDLING THE HOG 37 

to "cure" from the "chutes"? This lengthy re- 
frigeration may be necessary from its intensity, 
and on this account it does the work required of 
it slower than if it were not so intense. It does 
not tend to make the ham any more juicy or 
tender; hanging in the outside air where possible 
to have it so, or hanging in mild refrigeration, 
would have a tendency to effect this object, as the 
formation of sarco lactic acid which produces 
that state would be unimpeded, while in a chill 
room under intense cold its action is arrested, so 
there is nothing to be gained in this line by heavy 
refrigeration. 

To attempt to describe how this great waste 
of time and expense could be corrected, as also 
the number of sour hams, would be presumptu- 
ous, and as an ascertained fact could only be 
carried out by tests and experiments, and, while 
this would occupy time, it would be absolutely 
necessary for a true solution. 

With the Federal meat inspection which is in 
force now, the percentage of sour hams should 



38 HANDLING THE HOG 

be reduced to a minimum. Is it so ? There is an 
ante-mortem examination held and then a post- 
mortem; then the hogs are subject to a reinspec- 
tion. The first two inspections are made by vet- 
erinarians and the reinspection by meat inspect- 
ors ; both classes of men are experts in their line, 
gnd anything diseased and which will not make 
sweet meat out of *'cure" is thrown out and con- 
demned. Under the existing laws of nature, and if 
no disease is discernible in the ante or post mor- 
tem inspections, all the organs perfectly healthy, 
glands showing that they were performing their 
work properly while life existed, all hams should 
cure alike if properly treated ; then why all those 
"sour bodies" that are found in certain places? 
The percentage compared to the kill is small, but 
not at all exceptional or rare. This is a chapter 
on the handling of meat and its preparation for 
"cure," still it cannot be amiss to devote a line 
or two to the men who are doing their utmost to 
make this perfect. 

The veterinarians who made the ante and 
post mortem inspections are experts and pass 



HANDLING THE HOG 39 

their time day after day in these examinations, 
and cannot fail to detect the sHghtest weakness 
or sign of disease. The meat inspector is also 
an expert, his knowledge gained by long ex- 
perience in the handling and curing of meats, 
etc., this knowledge causing him to be disliked 
very often by those with whom his work brings 
him in contact, principally by the man in charge 
of the department, as just as soon as he com- 
mences to do his work in a careless manner or 
in such a way that the meat is liable to suffer, 
the meat inspector "jerks" him up, which he 
thinks is detracting from his dignity. I am ac- 
quainted with both classes, and know whereof 
I write; but, really, to the owner of the house the 
meat inspector is better than an extra foreman 
in a department. 

The calas or picnics will be treated much the 
same as the hams, but there is no need to have 
a green meat inspector on them at the "chutes," 
the averaging being done by the truckers. They 
are not so susceptible to damage, while the hog 
is alive, as the ham is, and are not so important. 



40 HANDLING THE HOG 

but the averaging should be done properly, and 
the trucker is easily educated to such work if 
there is a good foreman keeping his eye on the 
hanging of the meat. Going from the "chutes" 
to the hanging room, the trucker goes to the 
scale with his load, and calls out the description, 
the number of pieces and the tare of his truck. 
In this way, if he is not within the average, the 
scales will not give him a ticket, as should be 
done, if he is within any average, whether it be 
3 to 5, 4 to 6, 5 to 7, 6 to 8, 8 to lo, etc., so he 
has to unload again and make a recount of his 
pieces, or throw out some that do not belong to 
the average he is trying to make; about once is 
enough of this and afterwards he will be all 
right. Of course, old hands will be hired for 
this work, or men taken from other parts of the 
department who show an aptitude for it. 



HANDLING THE HOG 41 



CHAPTER V. 

Trimming the Bellies — Use of the Pounder 
IN Making Bacon — How Beef Tongues 
Should be Taken Out for Smoking — 
Boning and Tying Green Hams. 

The bellies, after being cut from the side, 
may be trimmed right there, on the cutting 
floor; that is, the lighter ones intended to go 
into pickle, or they may be sent down 
"chutes," where they are picked out for grade 
and average by the men from the sweet pickle 
department, who take them to the trim- 
mers. The first step taken is to put them 
through the "belly pounder," which flattens 
them out and leaves them in better form for 
trimming. This "pounder" is a very important 
accessory and the belly is better trimmed and 



42 HANDLING THE HOG 

comes out of pickle looking ever so much bet- 
ter from the use of it, the meat looking firm 
and solid, and there are few houses without 
one now, whether driven by electric motor, 
compressed air, or steam. The amount of 
trimming taken off, and the style, will depend 
on the wishes of the house ; no set rule can ap- 
ply. The bellies being strung and skewered 
in the shoulder end (this is not the case in some 
western houses), should have the flank a lit- 
tle longer when the belly is trimmed, as, in 
"smoke," this side will shrink more than the 
back, so that when it comes out, the meat will 
be square if the cut on the flank end was made 
slightly on the ''bias" instead of being square 
across. Houses that pride themselves on their 
bellies will cut inside the teats in trimming and 
will make them "seedless," as few sales of bel- 
lies are made that the contract does not call 
for "seedless." 

The finest grade of breakfast bacon which 
each house puts up in a very mild cure, should 
be run through the "pounder" after being 



HANDLING THE HOG 43 

cured and then retrimmed and "faced," the 
facing giving the lean a brighter appearance, 
of course, and a very inviting look on coming 
out of "smoke." This grade is picked out for 
the smoothness of its skin, the preference be- 
ing given to barrow bellies. The reason of this 
is, the barrow shows a streak of lean meat 
through the length of the belly, through the 
fat, and gives it the appearance of being bet- 
ter mixed. This streak is really a muscle, 
known as rectus abdominis, and in life its ac- 
tion is to support and compress the abdominal 
viscera and assist in respiration; it is also the 
chief flexor of the spinal column. While some 
judges pretend to be able to tell whether a 
well-trimmed belly be from a sow or barrow, 
by its general appearance, without seeing this 
streak of lean, or muscle, they are at fault very 
often, but if this streak shows itself ever so 
little you may safely conclude it is a barrow; 
if it does not show, it is a sow belly. 

The ordinary breakfast bacon is cured in a 
stronger pickle and runs all averages up to 



44 HANDLING THE HOG 

i6 to i8 pounds generally; a i6 to i8-pound 
plain pickle belly is also carried, and anything 
above this average in the pickling department 
is in plain pickle. 

Tongues, both beef and pork, which were 
chilled in cold water, trimmed and washed 
with a brush, free of all slime, were brought 
into the pickling department and hung up on 
racks, singly, to finish chilling, in 24 hours in 
a temperature of 39 degrees F. I have found 
the best results from this temperature to 40 
degrees F., and tongues, either beef or pork, 
treated in this manner will be always sweet, 
and a sour tongue unknown. Lambs* tongues 
should be sent to — probably the sausage de- 
partment is the most suitable — to be skinned by 
scalding, when they are turned over to the 
pickling department and hung, as are the oth- 
ers, on racks. Pork, lamb and beef tongues 
intended for the canning room after curing, 
may be hung by the end or tip of the tongue, 
but beef tongues intended for "smoke" should 
not. 



HANDLING THE HOG 45 

The tongue for this purpose should be taken 
out differently on the killing floor, in this way : 
In sticking, it is well to stick your bullock high, 
as, in doing so, you avoid cutting the "fell," 
which covers the intermaxillary space; also, 
in skinning, the "header" must be careful not 
to destroy this "fell"; he must cut the trachea 
between the second and third ring, or at the 
third. In taking the tongue out of the head, 
the tonguer must hug closely with his knife 
the inferior maxilla (lower jaw bones), so as 
not to injure the mucous membrane and "fell," 
which surrounds the lingual muscles. This 
will make a nice clean tongue when washed 
and chilled, as there will be no abrasions to 
collect blood clots. When chilled before going 
into pickle, it is trimmed square, leaving as 
much fat on as possible. In hanging on the 
rack, unlike the canning tongue, it should be 
hung by the fraenum, or that part known as 
the "string of the tongue," with the tip also 
caught on the hook to prevent it hanging over ; 
in this way it will not stretch out of shape. 



46 HANDLING THE HOG 

On the upper part of the tongue just be- 
fore the raise, where the organs of taste are 
situated, very frequently is found an abrasion, 
or, on feeling with the fingers, a small lump 
is felt in the flesh. Nearly half of these abra- 
sions, or lumps, are affected with a ray fungi, 
which produces actinomycosis, the balance be- 
ing caused by foxtail grass or other coarse for- 
age, which works down into the organs of 
taste. Those abrasions should be cut away 
and any hard flesh or foreign matter also cut 
out. In the case of a tongue intended for 
"smoke" this cutting would spoil it for that 
purpose, but in the canning tongue the disfig- 
urement does not matter. 

Boned and tied hams also belong to the 
pickling department, and should be made there. 
This style of ham is in good demand and is 
made from the 2Q-pound and up green ham, 
though in a great many houses (especially of 
the smaller class) it is made from cured stock. 
The only reason that I can assign for it is, that 
in the curing of the ham boned and tied from 



HANDLING THE HOG 47 

green stock, a miserable failure has been made 
in more instances than one. There can be no 
other reason, as I have seen repeated tests 
made of hams boned and tied from green stock 
and then cured, and of hams cured and then 
boned and tied, the results in every instance 
being* in favor of the former, and there is no 
comparison in the appearance of the two hams 
when cut. 

In boning and tying hams green, too much 
care and cleanliness cannot be exercised. There 
is nothing that I know of that will take up 
smell or taint quicker than fresh meat, and 
where the hand comes in close contact with 
the inside of the ham, or the handle of chisel or 
gouge in chasing the shank bone, it is impera- 
tive that both hands and tools be scrupulously 
clear of taint or dirt. After the ham is entirely 
freed of bone, it is rolled into shape and tied 
temporarily to hold it so, when the permanent 
tying is put on. 

There is no established number of turns of 
this tying, so that the house will regulate this, 



48 HANDLING THE HOG 

but there must be turns enough to bring the 
ham into a nice round shape and make it solid ; 
the twine used is a hard whip cord, and will 
stand a good strain. 

Now with all the care imaginable, those who 
gave up the boning and tying of green hams, 
in favor of boning and tying cured stock, 
made a "slop" right here, and never found out 
why, nor the remedy for it, or else they would 
gladly return to the former method, as it is a 
better looking article, cuts more solidly, and 
there is less shrink in cooking and smoking 
than in the ham cured and then boned and 
tied. This subject is more fully treated in the 
following chapter. 



HANDLING THE HOG 49 



CHAPTER VI. 

Observance of Details Decreases Percentage 
OF Sour Meats — The Best Vats, and 
Something About Cleaning Them — 
"Pumping" on the First "Overhauling." 

No matter how careful the man had been, 
he had to put his hand inside the ham and 
rub it to the fresh meat; then, in tying 
up, he could not help tying up small pockets 
of air, the ham being tied so hard that there 
v^as no escape for it, with the result that when 
the ham was cured, it was sour, sometimes only 
in one spot not as big as a half dollar, and 
again in several spots of this dimension, but 
never one continuous patch, as in a sour-bodied 
regular ham. I am aware that there are men 
who will tell you that the best boned and tied 



50 HANDLING THE HOG 

ham is made from the regular cured ham ; after 
boning, rolled in a cloth, then put into an iron 
container, which shapes it, then pressed hard 
with a lever, cooked while in this container, 
taken out next day and smoked or tied and 
smoked; those people will say that they tried 
the green hams, but found the other the most 
advantageous. The real fact of it is, they tried 
the boned and tied green hams and found they 
had so much "sour" that they abandoned it. 
It can be gotten out perfectly sweet without 
the use of any of the prohibited ''dope," if 
handled properly. 

The hams under the present system of re- 
frigeration having hung long enough in the 
hanging room to have lost all their animal 
heat, say, 24 hours for the 8 to los, 10 to 12s, 
12 to 14s, 48 hours for 14 to i6s, 16 to i8s, 'J2 
hours for 18 to 20s, and so on — ^but no rule 
can be laid down for this, as the length of time 
required in the hanging room and the tempera- 
ture there will depend on the condition of the 
meat coming from the cutting floor, and expe- 



HANDLING THE HOG 51 

rience alone can settle this, as also the use 
of the meat thermometer, an article that some 
foremen disdain to use, as they think that they 
are possessed of an amount of knowledge that 
throws the merits of this thermometer in the 
shade. A man who is foreman in any part of 
a pickling department in a house holding 
twenty-five to fifty million pounds of meat in 
cure all the time, must be possessed of a good 
deal of knowledge in this line, but I have yet 
to meet the man whose knowledge was as ac- 
curate as to the temperature of the inside of 
the ham as a thermometer which one can stick 
into it. It is to get rid of the high tempera- 
ture that meat is hung in the hanging room, 
and the thermometer is made to ascertain that 
temperature accurately; then why not use it? 
If details of this kind were more faithfully 
observed, there would be less sour meat. 

Having ascertained that your meat is ready 
for packing, by any means you please, it is 
taken in trucks to your curing room, perhaps 
by a conveyor in some instances, but never put 



52 HANDLING THE HOG 

in pickle before it is ''scaled," but a change has 
taken place in it since, a further shrinkage, so 
get a new line on it, and by weighing it, you 
also get a uniform weight in your vats. 

The time is opportune for something about 
vats. I have seen them run in capacity from 
I, GOO to nearly 3,000 pounds, but, of all, the 
most convenient and suitable size is the oak 
vat, of ''buck" staves, with a capacity of 1,400 
pounds. It is easily handled and cleaned, and 
the meat can be easily reached from any side 
by the "overhauler." The larger size I men- 
tioned is too big and clumsy, so big that in 
some houses they find it too unwieldy to take 
out of the curing room to wash it when it is 
required to "pack," and resort to the filthy and 
damnable method of putting a man inside of it 
to clean (?) it. The number of men in a pack- 
ing house, especially in dry salt cellars and 
S. P. departments, who do not chew tobacco, 
are in a very small minority, nor does the fore- 
man go chasing around to find a man who does 
not "chev/" to put into one of those big vats 



HANDLING THE HOG 53 

to clean it out. Vats cannot be too cleanly 
washed with scalding hot water and soda and 
thoroughly rinsed with clean water. This can- 
not be accomplished in the curing room. In 
large houses, where the smaller vat is used, its 
cleaning is done by a machine outside the curing 
room, even outside of the building in some cases. 
Were I sanctified enough to be a preacher, and 
one of the chosen, I might make this the sub- 
ject for a sermon, giving as my text, '*By their 
works you shall know them," but I am not ; still, 
I cannot help reflecting that when I see a pack- 
ing-house man in any position, high or low, 
v/hether he is directing the affairs of the house, 
or of a department, or at the ''hot" end of a 
truck, with filthy or uncleanly habits in his work, 
I am positively assured that I am up against a 
very poor man as far as ability and knowledge 
is concerned, and, as an employer, such a man 
could not work for me in the handling of meats. 
There is an old adage, the origin of which I do 
not know, "Where there's muck, there's luck," 
and certainly a great number of packinghouse 



54 HANDLING THE HOG 

men seem to place implicit belief in it, and in 
so doing have brought opprobrium on an industry 
that can be carried out as cleanly as any line of 
business in comparison. Well, perhaps "there'll 
come a day!" and in the meantime I have de- 
monstrated that the ungainly nearly three thou- 
sand-pound vat is not conducive to sanitation, 
consequently, not to the sweetness of meat. 

In direct opposition to the foregoing some 
men are so very clean, that directly a vat is 
emptied of the meat, they take it out and have 
it washed, although, perhaps, they may not re- 
quire it for fresh "packing" for a week or more. 
This is also wrong, as in the washing you extract 
all of the salt, and after a few days, in the damp 
atmosphere of the curing room, the vat gets 
moldy, and it requires to be washed again, or, if 
you allow it to pass unheeded you are sowing the 
seeds of "ropy" or sour pickle. Molds are of 
vegetable origin, and by the average packing- 
house man are considered of little importance, 
but he would be more cautious if he understood 
the deleterious effect they have, depending on the 



HANDLING THE HOG 55 

genus to which they belong, on pickles, meat and 
food of all kinds intended for human consump- 
tion. In concluding this paragraph, I may add 
that vats in the curing room, empty of meat with 
old pickle in them, are no sign of uncleanliness, or 
of being unsanitary. A vat should not be wash- 
ed until it is required for "packing." 

But, to get back to the "packing" of our hams. 
They are, say, trucked to the curing vat where 
the packers are, generally two men ; the vat being 
placed in position, one of the packers will throw 
a handful or two of fine salt on the bottom of 
the vat, to keep the ham from sticking, and com- 
mence to lay his first tier of hams, backs down, 
butts to the side of the vat, flanks overlapping 
the cushion of the preceding ham, and then fill 
in the center; then a slight sprinkling of fine 
salt, and another tier, and so on until he comes 
to the top or last tier, which is turned face down, 
the last ham having attached to it a tag which 
will contain a slight history of the contents of 
the vat, such as style of hams, the average num- 
ber of pieces, date of "packing," dates of "over- 



56 HANDLING THE HOG 

hauling," when they are made; the vats, of 
course, "packed" at a uniform weight. There 
are, then, or later in the day, "headings" put on, 
which are four pieces of board laid across the 
meat and then a cross piece laid over these. On 
the vat are two iron "lugs," whose purpose is to 
keep down the cross piece, which is laid across 
the "headings." Before the pickle is put on, 
these cross pieces are probably three inches be- 
low the "lugs," but when the pickle is put on, 
which is done by a hose, it raises the meat, bring- 
ing the cross piece right up to the "lug," which 
holds it in place. The raising of the meat by 
the pickle removes the pressure from the under- 
neath tiers of hams, allowing the pickle free 
access to them. 

The reader who is closely following me will, 
perhaps, say I have made a "slip" here, as I 
have made no mention of "pumping" the hams. 
Not so ! I've m.ade no "slip" at all ; my inten- 
tion was not to pump them, at least not just yet. 
I got over that long ago, and it was only after 
lumerous tests and very grave judgment that I 



HANDLING THE HOG 57 

abandoned the method of "pumping" going into 
pickle, for that of "pumping" on the first "over- 
hauling." 

I do not think that any intelligent head of a 
department will learn very much new here. 
He may peruse it through curiosity to see if it 
coincides with his ideas, and is willing to give 
my opinion a trial if it does not, as there may be 
a possibility that he may pick up something that 
may be of benefit to him. There is another class 
who could pick up something new to them, but 
they won't, as some of their pet theories may be 
upset; their name is spelled d — u — b. There is 
still another class who will read this, and they 
are the uninitiated, who read the ads. about 
sugar-cured hams, but are not very sure of the 
process or method of curing; for their benefit I 
will explain two technical terms, "pumping" and 
"overhauling." 



58 HANDLING THE HOG 



CHAPTER VII. 

Putting Meats into Cure — Keeping "Tabs" 
ON the Workmen in the Various De- 
partments — Arrangement of Vats. 

Pumping a ham consists of injecting a strong 
pickle made of salt and saltpeter into the ham 
along the line of the bone, by means of a force 
pump, to which a rubber hose is attached with 
a hollow needle on the end of it; in the hollow 
top of this needle are a number of holes through 
which the pickle is forced while it is inside the 
ham. 

This "pumping" pickle is known as a full 
strength pickle, and is a saturated solution of 
salt, that is, the water has taken up all the salt 
it will dissolve. This on the salometer, an in- 
strument used for testing the density of saline 



HANDLING THE HOG 59 

strength of meat pickles, will show a reading of 
100 and the solution will contain 25 per cent, of 
salt. It is a fact, perhaps, not generally known 
by men using a salometer, that the fourth of the 
reading is the percentage of salt contained in the 
pickle or solution. 

Great care should be exercised in putting a 
new salometer into use, and it should not be ac- 
cepted as being correct, without testing it. In 
fact, it is much the better plan to leave the test- 
ing of it in the hands of the house chemist, who 
will test it under all conditions. I have found 
them to vary from I to 3 degrees. Those show- 
ing anything over one degree variation should 
be returned. 

To a vat of this full strength pickle, 250 gal- 
lons, is added thirty pounds of saltpeter dis- 
solved in hot water, or pickle. This is then a 
very strong pickle and one would naturally 
think it was too strong to be used in connection 
with the curing of a ham; but, when you re- 
flect that there is 70 per cent, moisture in a 
ham, and that this pickle will become diluted 



6o HANDLING THE HOG 

by the natural juices, it is not at all too strong, as 
when the dilution takes place, it will not leave it 
as strong as the curing pickle (around 80 de- 
grees) which is put in it afterwards. There is 
no embalming fluid or ''dope" of any kind, other 
than this, contrary to the opinion of some. 

By the term "overhauling" is meant the chang- 
ing of the meat from the vat it is in to an empty 
one, and when all the meat is in the new vat, 
the pickle is baled out of the old one and put 
on again in the new one. This is done for the 
purpose of changing the position of the meat so 
that the pickle will get access to every part and 
also the agitation caused by the transaction 
hastens the cure as it causes the pickle to enter 
more freely than if laying still. In the curing 
of hams this "overhauling" takes place four dif- 
ferent times, the first time in four days after the 
hams are packed, or put into cure, and each of 
the others at intervals of ten days apart. 

In "packing" (putting into cure) hams the 
style in vogue (of "pumping" as they were taken 



HANDLING THE HOG 6i 

off the scale and put on a truck or carriage to 
the vat) did not satisfy me, nor give the results 
that should be obtained in a well-regulated house, 
so several tests were made before a change was 
decided on, with the result that "pumping" on 
the first ''overhauling'* was found the most con- 
ducive to the safety and sweetness of the hams. 
Some men may think that my stuff should 
come out right anyhow, if I took proper care of 
it. I did take care of it and it did not come 
out to satisfy me, though it was no worse than 
it ever was before. I never used borax, boracic 
acid, salicylic acid, glycerin, etc., either in pump- 
ing or curing pickles. I wanted the hams to 
come out clear, using only salt, saltpeter and 
sugar, and I succeeded because I adopted the 
method of "pumping" on the first "overhauling." 
Do not for a moment think that I want to claim 
this was original. It was used before, but I 
had a very large establishment and had, of 
course, to be cautious and give the matter large 
consideration before making any change. 



62 HANDLING THE HOG 

This is no guesswork, it is a sure thing. If 
your hams are soft and sloppy, coming from your 
hanging room, they are not in a fit state to re- 
ceive the "pumping." The thing to do is to put 
them into a vat in a room of 37 degrees and 
put 35 degrees curing pickle on them, which 
is the best curing temperature, and proper 
temperature for pickle; at the end of four days, 
when your first "overhauling" comes along, they 
are nice and firm and will contain what is pump- 
ed into them. If, on the other hand, your hams 
are too hard, perhaps shanks frozen, or close to 
it, they are not in a fit state to receive the pump- 
ing, but, treat them as in the case of the other 
ham, and at the end of four days they will have 
thawed out, and still be firm, which is the prop- 
er state for a ham to be in when being pumped. 

In pumping hams great care must be taken 
that the pump is perfect, otherwise you will have ^ 
trouble. Be sure that the pump at each stroke 
throws a steady stream until the handle is fully 
depressed. Be very careful that the pump does 
not leak or "suck air." 



HANDLING THE HOG 63 

In "pumping" the man who uses the needle 
should have it impressed on his mind to direct 
his needle along the line of the bone; the ham 
is placed on a stand, face uppermost, with the 
butt towards the needleman. His first insertion 
of the needle into the ham is directed so as to 
catch the joint in the shank, the second in the 
body along the bone, and a third in the butt in 
the same direction. In heavy hams this may be 
increased to two insertions each in the body and 
butt. The reader is already aware that attached 
to the last ham put in the vat is a tag with data 
concerning the contents; on the back of this 
tag it is desirable that the "overhauler" put his 
initials as also the initials of the needleman of 
the pumping gang. The fact of knowing that 
you have such a "tab" on them, will make them 
more cautious in the work. The "overhauler" 
will not catch a ham on the face and so tear it 
if he did so, nor will the needleman allow the 
ham to leave him until it is properly pumped. 
The latter, if properly instructed, realizes the im- 



64 HANDLING THE HOG 

portance of the work he is doing and knows that 
if any sours show up he will be called to account 
for it^ as following out the instructions I have 
given thus far, there is no excuse for sour meat, 
and there will not be any unless someone neg- 
lects a part of the work allotted to him. I do not 
think that the packinghouse man engaged in 
manual labor is any more prone to neglect of 
work when not being watched than those in other 
lines of life, but I do think that on such im- 
portant work, where a little carelessness will 
lose a lot of valuable property, that you cannot 
take too many precautions, and let the man 
know that a "tab" is being kept on the way he 
performs his work. He will not feel hurt at 
this, as you have before described the importance 
of it to him, and he already knows from his ex- 
perience with you, as head of the department in 
which he works, that you will treat him fairly, 
and while you are necessarily strict that you are 
also just. He may not reason in those words, 
but let the head of the department act in this 



HANDLING THE HOG 65 

way and the most stupid man he has working 
for him will not be slow to find it out, with the 
result that the man, or men, will show an amount 
of loyalty, without which no house can be opera- 
ted without losses that should not occur if the 
department head only uses the tact and judg- 
ment his employer is paying him for. 

But I digress. There is also another very 
important feature in connection with the "pump- 
ing" in the first ''overhauling,'' and that is the 
placing of 3'Our vats. With the overgrown near- 
ly 3,000-pound vat it cannot be done unless with 
great loss of time. 

In a room where all the space possible was 
utilized to place the vats, and ''double-deck" 
them, there was a very crowded condition, but 
in the new way an entire change must be made. 

The vats previously were "doubled-decked" on 
the double line, so that the ''overhauling" could 
be done without disturbing the upper tier. In 
the new way they must be "doubled-decked" on 
the single line, and to get at the lower tier the 



66 HANDLING THE HOG 

upper vat must be "overhauled" and then moved 
out with the aid of a "crow" bar onto a stand 
for the purpose, with an iron-covered top. The 
same number of vats will be carried in a room, 
as before, and in addition, the new style will, 
with every two lines of vats, give an alley wide 
enough for a truck to go through, so that any 
date or "packing" is available at all times. This 
may seem strange to anyone who has not work- 
ed both ways, but it is a fact. 

The vats must be arranged in this way so that 
the "pumping" gang can get between each two 
tiers. There will be an additional expense of 
an assistant for the "overhauler" at this time, 
but the latter v/ill accomplish the same number 
of vats as before, and thirty vats of 1,400 
pounds is a good day's work. You will 
also have the satisfaction of knowing that 
your hams will be absolutely free of "sour" 
unless in very rare cases, caused by some care- 
lessness which possibly could be traced. 



HANDLING THE HOG (>7 

Hams are necessarily slow in curing, but there 
is no need to wait till they are cured to find out 
how they are coming along. The method of 
doing this is known as the "thirty-day inspection." 



68 HANDLING THE HOG 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Length of Time Required to Cure — "Forc- 
ing"' THE Cure — Fermentation an Im- 
portant Factor — Handling Sweet Pick- 
led Meats. 

It has been generally conceded by packing- 
house men^ and ham-curing experts that any 
"sour" that there is going to be in a ham will 
show in thirty days. If "sour shanks," "marrow," 
or "bodies" do not develop in thirty days, there 
will be no sour ; that is, thirty days from date of 
"packing" or putting into cure. So, at the ap- 
pointed time an inspector will take so many 
pieces from each vat of a certain number of the 
packing and will include in this five or six dates, 
as the inspection is only made weekly. The in- 
spector makes out a slip showing the dates, the 



HANDLING THE HOG 69 

number of pieces of the different averages, shows 
how many "shanks," "marrows," or "bodies" he 
found "sour," if any; so that right along you 
know exactly how your curing is coming along. 
It certainly is a very pleasing sight to the head 
of the department to scan this report of the in- 
spector and find not one sour under the dif- 
ferent headings. Don't think for a moment that 
the inspector "fixes" this report so as to read 
that way. My experience has been that the in- 
spector was even closer than I cautioned him to 
be on this inspection. 

This description may not be very clear to any- 
one not acquainted with the work, but I regret 
that I cannot explain myself more fully without 
going into a long preamble. The hams being 
packed and pickled, they are allowed to remain 
without disturbance till the fourth day, when 
they are taken out, "pumped" after that, and 
placed into the new vat, and placed as 
they were before. This is the first "overhaul- 
ing," and in a case of emergency it may be allow- 
ed to run five days, but not over. 



70 HANDLING THE HOG 

"Pumping" and "overhauling" in this manner 
may be a little awkward at first, but in a few 
days the men will accommodate themselves to 
it. The second "overhauling" takes place ten 
days from the first, and the third and fourth are 
also ten days apart, as also is the second and 
third. The hams are then allowed to remain un- 
disturbed till cured and required for use. During 
the time of curing care should be taken that the 
temperature is kept even at 37 degrees, which is, 
under ordinary circumstances, a good one. 

The length of time a ham will take in cure 
will depend, of course, on its average, or size, 
and the temperature of the room and with the 
temperature mentioned, the approximate time 
will be forty to forty-five days for 10 to 12s, and 
12 to 14s, fifty-five to sixty days for 14 to i6s, 
sixty-five to seventy days for 16 to i8s, seventy 
to seventy-five days for 18 to 20s. While this 
curing time is as near correct as can be given 
on paper, it is not alway^s to be relied on in the 
case of sending hams to "smoke," and it is al- 
ways to be desired that, when close to cure, a 



HANDLING THE HOG 71 

sample be sent of, say, a dozen hams to ''smoke," 
by which you can determine the safety of a full 
house. 

The number of days given approximately for 
the curing of hams can be reduced very much 
under certain conditions, known as "forcing the 
cure," if your house is very short of hams, and 
required to fill orders. The temperature may be 
allowed to go up two degrees in the case of the 
light hams, which will help, but the main forcing 
is done by ''pumping" again on the second "over- 
hauling," and, instead of stopping at the fourth, 
give a fifth "overhauling." This will bring your 
hams ahead ten to fifteen days, but this "forcing" 
should be done only when absolutely necessary, 
as the class of goods gotten out in this way are 
not so good a flavor as those allowed to ma- 
ture more slowly, but occasions may arise when 
it cannot be avoided, unless orders are turned 
down. I write of a house shipping as high as 
fifteen cars of S. P. meats a day. While there 
are no tricks in this line of work, there are a 
good many things in connection with it that can 



J2 HANDLING THE HOG 

only be acquired by experience; for instance, a 
twelve-pound ham that will be cured in forty- 
five days may be taken out of pickle at the end 
of, say, thirty-eight days and piled on racks on 
the floor, and it will finish curing there as if it 
had been left in the pickle, with this difference 
that there could be no cause of complaint from 
those who say that a very mild cured ham can- 
not be made without the use of prohibitive 
preservatives. The reason of the mildness in this 
particular ham can be easily understood. A low- 
er temperature than the one quoted here for 
curing will retard the cure on the principle that 
the meat under greater cold will become more 
solid so that the pickle will not become absorbed 
so easily, while in a higher temperature than 37 
degrees your sweet pickle is apt to become 
"ropy" before the hams are cured. "Ropy" 
pickle is a condition in which no man wishes to 
see his curing finished, as it is the post stage of 
sourness from fermentation and whether the 
pickle in the ham ferments or not, it does not, 
to say the least of it, add to the flavor of the 



HANDLING THE HOG -jz 

ham. Don't confound this with a "pickle sour" 
ham. 

Where sugar is used in pickle, and those 
known as ''sweet pickle," there is bound to be 
fermentation. Fermentation is induced at a 
temperature a little over the melting point of 
ice, its activity increasing until the maximum is 
reached, about 90 degrees F., when it diminishes 
down to nothing, and at 120 degrees F., or 
around there, it is killed. So it will readily be 
seen how hard it is to carry the sweet pickle 
ham, in or out of pickle. Detrimental as the 
fermentation is to the ham in general, yet it is 
to this that is due the soft, mild flavor of the 
most luscious of hams, when taken at the right 
time. It is fermentation which takes away the 
harsh taste of the salt, not the sweetening prop- 
erties of the sugar directly. If there is any 
doubt of this, make a test of a vat of hams, using 
saccharine instead of cane sugar. With the 
former there is no fermentation, but the meat 
has a hard flavor, and, while sweet, it will not 
mix with the salt, leaving two distinct flavors, 



74 HANDLING THE HOG 

\he salt and the sweet. Fermentation is such an 
important factor that it should be kept under 
control as much as possible by refrigeration up 
to the time of going to "smoke." The packer 
who makes a shipment of S. P. hams to Europe 
without providing refrigeration on the steamer 
is taking chances, especially in the summer time. 
Hams on an order of this kind are generally 
packed in boxes, shipped in S. P., that is, they 
are not ''smoked," ''Smoking," in the absorp- 
tion of pyroligneous acid by the meat, arrests 
the fermentation, but hams, if they can be car- 
ried safely in transit, are the better of being 
"smoked" at their destination. The fancy grade 
of breakfast bacon, such as is put on the market 
in this country, which contains a very large 
amount of sweetening, will not stand exporta- 
tion at all, the flavor being injured so much that 
the ordinary breakfast, or common clear bacon^ 
is much preferable to it. Even pulling it out of 
the vast and piling it on racks in the curing room 
for, say, ten days, will give it that flavor, and it 
can easily be detected, so that it should be sent 



HANDLING THE HOG 75 

to "smoke" within a day of coming out of pickle. 
All sweet pickled meats are subject to fermenta- 
tion; it is going on long before it is detected, 
and the greater the amount of sugar used, the 
greater it will be ; S. P. meats are intended foi 
quick consumption, and the sooner the consumer 
receives them after curing and "smoking," the 
more palatable and agreeable the flavor. When a 
S. P. ham is old, the fat becomes rancid, but the 
ordinary purchaser cannot tell what is the mat- 
ter, except that it is not good flavored, while an 
expert can readily tell the reason ; he knows that 
fermentation is the cause of it. 

It will thus be seen that the curing should take 
place in as low a temperature as possible com- 
patible with dispatch. To cure in a temperature 
below 37° F. would make the process too slow 
for the requirements of the trade, while a higher 
temperature will cause fermentation in your 
sweet pickle to such an extent that before a 
medium or heavy ham is cured, it is apt to have 
a deleterious effect on it. 



y(i HANDLING THE HOG 

Were the curing rooms in a house of such an 
extent that the hams need not be taken out of 
pickle till required for shipment or "smoke," the 
meat could be kept in better shape and flavor 
than by any other method, as directly they were 
cured, and finding that they would not be re- 
quired for use then, refrigeration could be turn- 
ed on till the thermometer dropped to 30° F., 
or below that, which would make the ham so 
solid that no more salt would be absorbed, and 
so hold the hams without coming in contact with 
the air ; they would not freeze at 30° F. But un- 
fortunately the premises are not extensive enough 
for this, so when the hams are getting old in 
"cure" and the room required for fresh pack- 
ing, they have to be pulled out, drained, wiped 
and packed in tierces and stored in a good tem- 
perature — say 20° F. — ^which will keep them in 
good shape without freezing. On pulling the 
hams out of pickle for this purpose, they should 
be nicely piled on clean racks, not too high, so 
that there will not be too much pressure on the 
lower layers, and allowed to drain four days, 



HANDLING THE HOG -jy 

then wiped clean with cheesecloth, packed in 
newly washed tierces, headed up and "blown off." 
Hams treated in this manner will come out bright 
and clear when required for "smoke." To men 
who are not accustomed to handling hams in 
large quantities this may seem a rather expen- 
sive method of carrying hams in storage, but it 
is the only way of handling them to keep them 
sweet and clean, free from that yeasty smell 
caused by fermentation, this yeasty smell after- 
ward turning to rancidity in the fat of the meat. 
In the "good old days" the method with tierce 
stock^ — that is, hams cured in tierces — was, when 
the pickle was getting "ropy" through age and 
bad temperature, the bung was knocked in and 
the tierce then turned bung-hole down over a 
sewer and allowed to drain, when a new bung 
was driven in and the tierce rolled away to put 
in storage. This was supposed to be a saving 
in handling, while in reality the man who ordered 
it done was spoiling good stuff; yet he would 
feel very much hurt if told so. While this meth- 



78 HANDLING THE HOG 

od is a remnant of those "good old days," I re- 
gret to say that such ignorance and carelessness 
is still carried on in many instances, and the pur- 
chaser wonders why it. is that now and again he 
gets a ham of a certain brand that is not very 
sweet around the bone, the marrow as he slices 
the ham being smeared across the face of the 
cut, v/ith the saw, of an offensive smell, and the 
outer part of the fat of a strong rancid odor; 
at other times he finds hams of this brand all 
that could be desired. I have already described 
v/hat is known as the "thirty-day inspection," 
and any S. P. hams found sweet and clear of 
any taint then will not become tainted afterwards 
unless through gross mismanagement. I pre- 
sume, of course, that the house has provided 
adequate means for the meat being handled in 
a proper manner, and there are few places now 
that lay any claim to up-to-dateness that do 
not give this matter the attention it requires, as 
they long ago have become possessed of the 
knowledge that S. P. meats require just as much 
care and attention after cure as they did before 



HANDLING THE HOG 79 

and while in cure. Should a house not be pro- 
vided with proper facilities, the proprietor or 
manager, on proper representation from the head 
of the department, will attend to it, especially if 
he caters to the export trade. 



8o HANDLING THE HOG 



CHAPTER IX. 

Trimmings for Pork Sausage — How they 
May be Kept Fresh — Another Way of 
Curing in Pickle — The Kind of Tierces 
TO Use. 

Not long ago an article appeared in a New 
York paper, in which a noted man in connection 
with the meat-packing business in this country 
was quoted as saying, in London: "American 
packers, if they are ever to regain the trade lost 
here, will do so at the expense of years of effort." 

That gentleman presumably knew what he 
was talking about, and, of course, meant all 
kinds of meat in the trade referred to — fresh, 
cured and canned; but there is none of those 
that require more careful handling and attention 
on the part of the packer than the sweet pickled 
meats from the time of purchase of the animal 



HANDLING THE HOG 8i 

till it is delivered, cured, to the middleman or 
consumer, when *'it is up to him." 

The public desires a mild cured ham or bacon, 
and the only way to give it to them is to add 
to the curing pickle a certain amount of sweet- 
ening, preferably in the form of cane sugar, and 
I have already described the effect of this sugar, 
unless under great care and judgment, when it 
can be delivered cured in good shape. 

Should the public require a ham to keep sweet 
under any and all circumstances, give them a 
dry salt ham or a plain pickled one. The further 
you get away from this plain pickled ham in the 
scale of sweetness, the more care must be ex- 
ercised in handling it to carry; and if men in 
charge of sweet pickle curing departments will 
give this the consideration it deserves, seeing 
personally to the smallest detail, they will have 
done their part in regaining this part of the 
foreign trade and in making American meats 
standard, both at home and abroad. 

There is no one part in the detail of handling 
the hog that can be neglected, if intended to go 



82 HANDLING THE HOG 

into sweet pickle. The head of the curing de- 
partment — let him be ever so careful and intelli- 
gent — may have his work upset by the actions of 
those through whom the hog passed before com- 
ing to him cut up. His hams may look nice 
passing over the table, through the inspector's 
hands; but through any neglect in the method of 
procedure since the time of purchase of the 
hog, from the different hands through which it 
passed, there will be a riper field found for the 
process of fermentation, which is at once the 
life and the curse of the S. P. ham, and it has 
taken place long before it can be detected in any 
ham in which sugar is used. 

I don't know that any such opinion has been 
expressed before of this class of goods — I nev- 
er heard or saw it. I write from experience, and 
I know of at least one man, than whom there 
is no better authority in the country, who, I am 
positive, would indorse these statements I make. 

The majority of packinghouse men, though 
some of them are considered experts in curing, 
do not give the subject this close study; but take 



HANDLING THE HOG 83 

the matter up as I describe it, with a chemist, 
and get his opinion. Tve been through this 
and can write confidently on the matter. 

I have heard that the Secretary of Agriculture 
made the statement that he wished to make 
American meats the foremost in the world. He 
can do so if he gets the proper cooperation, or 
puts this part of the work under the supervision 
of a man who, by his knowledge, will convince 
the packers that his method is correct and that 
he understands the subject he has in hand, and 
so insist on this cooperation on their part. 

In the curing of hams since the Act of Con- 
gress June 30, 1906, went into effect, it has been 
stated that it was impossible to cure them with 
as mild or fine a flavor as before, when preserva- 
tives of all kinds could be used. Now, of course, 
it is prohibited and nothing allowed except salt, 
saltpeter and sugar. 

I cannot understand how any man of intelli- 
gence, pretending to know anything of curing 
meat, could make any such assertion. Recall to 
mind the incident of the farmer's curing, describ- 



84 HANDLING THE HOG 

ed in a former chapter. He used no borax, 
boracic acid or other agent of this kind in curing 
his meat, nor, when his wife made some pork 
sausage, did she use any of those compounds 
''without which sausage wouldn't keep" to pre- 
serve them. She never heard of those preserva- 
tives; yet her sausage was deHcious. 

Why all the agitation that has taken place in 
some papers devoted to the packing industry 
on the subject of mild preservatives? It was 
not (as any practical man should know) be- 
cause hams could not be cured without using 
these preservatives. 

There is one very important feature in the 
making or manufacture of pork sausage — the 
trimmings for such require to be fresh. There 
are certain times when those trimmings are plen- 
tiful — so much so that the supply exceeds the de- 
mand by a long way. What is to become of this 
excess? Houses bought those trimmings by the 
carload or half carload at times, and to put them 
in pickle would not suit at all for pork sausage — • 



HANDLING THE HOG 85 

but how to carry them fresh? In the freezing 
process the quality and flavor were injured. 

There was a way, though, in which they could 
be carried fresh, or so nearly so that when the 
sausage was made from them no trace of salt 
could be tasted, unless what is always required 
to suit the palate; in fact, if handled by an ex- 
pert, salt had to be added in the "mixer" with 
the spices. The way of doing this was : The 
trimmings were put into a vat of plain pickle for 
about fifteen minutes, then forked out on racks 
to drain and turned over so that they did not ab- 
sorb too much of the pickle, or that it did not 
stick to them. Then those trimmings were put 
on a large wooden tray, so much at a time, and 
sprinkled over with a mixture of borax, boracic 
acid and sugar and thoroughly mixed, then pack- 
ed tight in tierces, headed up and put into a 
temperature where they would hold as long as 
wanted and come out of the tierce with a very 
faint trace of salt, if any; those ingredients can- 
not now be used according to law in a House 
governed by Federal inspection. This was the 



86 HANDLING THE HOG 

only way that a large amount of trimmings 
could be carried satisfactorily without freezing 
and suitable for pork sausage. 

While the method of curing hams in vats has 
been described, there is another very important 
way, in pickle — that of curing in tierces; but, 
unlike the former, they must be "pumped" when 
being packed or put into the tierce, unless there 
is room enough to make all the "packing" in vats 
and on the first overhauling, when the "pump- 
ing" could be done, to repack in the tierces. 
While good stock can be got in tierce work, it is 
not so absolutely sure as is the vat stock handled 
in the way I described. There would be an ad- 
ditional cost if the hams were first put in vats 
and on the first overhauling packed in tierces 
after being pumped, but I am positive it would 
pay for itself, as there would be almost an ab- 
solute surety of the hams coming out, every one, 
minus shank or body sours. But stock can be 
carried longer in tierces in pickle than in vats, 
and also will be of a brighter color, from 
the fact that they are' entirely sealed up so that 



HANDLING THE HOG S7 

no open air comes in contact with either pickle 
or tlie meat from time of packing till the goods 
are required for *'smoke" or shipment. 

The critical performance in tierce packing is 
to see that your tierces are clean and sound, thor- 
oughly waslied from the last packing. Wooden- 
bound (that is, those having wooden hoops) oak 
tierces are the most desirable, and always in 
vogue, unless there should be such a shortage 
that the packer is glad to get any kind of tierces, 
so that they will effect his purpose. 

Beef tierces, or those used in the packing or 
curing of beef hams, or clods, should not be used 
in the curing of pork hams, or calas, as your 
pickle is very apt to go wrong, especially if they 
are required to carry a long time ; while beef 
tierces should not be used in the curing of pork, 
pork tierces may without danger be used in the 
curing of beef, and in all cases a good second- 
hand tierce is preferable to a new one. The 
wooden-bound tierces, as already stated, are the 
most desired from the fact that they are more 
snug and easier handled, will pile better, as the 



88 HANDLING THE HOG 

thick hoops on either side of the bilge give them 
a greater bearing surface for the tierce piled on 
top of it, and altogether they look more "ship- 
shape." 



HANDLING THE HOG 



CHAPTER X. 

What Beef Hams Are- — The Inside, Outside 
AND Knuckle Constitute a Set — Used 
FOR Chipped Beef — Gain of Weight in 
Pickle. 

In the first part of the last paragraph mention 
is made of beef hams, and perhaps it would be 
better if I describe what they are, as I'm afraid 
that there are some who may peruse this that 
do not understand the term and connect the 
word ham entirely with the hog. However, there 
are beef hams as v/ell as pork hams. The beef 
ham is made from the leg or round of beef, and 
in the large houses is made on the beef cutting 
floor. When the loin and rump butt is removed 
from the leg or round, the latter is taken off 
the bench to the ham stripper, where it is faced 



90 HANDLING THE HOG 

and trimmed up. It is then hung on a hook in 
a post, by the shank bone. Those pieces are 
known as the inside, outside, and the knuckle, 
and as their names imply, cover the bone on these 
parts of the leg. They are a solid piece of meat 
the inside being the heaviest, the outside next 
and the knuckle the lightest of the three. They 
are cured in a sweet pickle and then smoked 
and dried and used for chipped beef. These 
cuts are what are known as beef hams, the in- 
side, outside and knuckle being called a "set" 
(set of hams). Another cut that is used very 
much for chipped beef is the "clod," a heavy 

piece of meat which covers the shoulder blade. 
With this brief explanation we will return to 
the packing of pork hams in tierces. In "scal- 
ing" or weighing the hams into vats, at the time 
of packing or putting into cure, it was shown 
that a uniform weight was put in each vat, 1,420 
pounds of hams, net weight, constituting a vat 
full, and in calculating stock on hand, each vat 
was counted as containing this amount. In the 
tierce there is a slight difference; the hams are 



HANDLING THE HOG 91 

weighed, the scale beam being set at 295 pounds, 
but, instead of marking (branding) the tierce 
with this amount, or, in taking stock, it would 
be as 300 pounds. Of course to any head of a 
current department this is nothing new, but it 
is not for their benefit I describe the transaction. 
To an observer who witnessed the amount 
weighed on the scale and then saw that the 
tierce was branded five pounds more than it 
actually contained, it would appear, if he was not 
posted, that there was something fraudulent in 
doing so. But no; it is perfectly legitimate, and 
in taking stock afterwards and counting those 
tierces at 300 pounds, though in reality there was 
only 295 pounds put into them, the stock man was 
quite correct. 

To a member of the "profesh" it may seem 
silly to relate this, but there may be a number 
who will read this book who are not conversant 
with the curing of hams or cala, and I wish to 
make all the details in connection therewith per- 
fectly plain. The reason of the discrepancy be- 



92 HANDLING THE HOG 

tween the branded and the actual weight put 
in the tierce is that the hams gain in pickle in 
weight during curing. Hams at the time they 
are cured will have gained 6 per cent., by the 
absorption of pickle, from the given weight. 

In shipping or selling the packer would allow 
to the purchaser 4 per cent, to cover loss by 
what is known as drainage and in weighing a 
draft on the scale of 300 pounds, the scale beam 
would show that the purchaser was getting 312 
pounds, but in a few days this same draft would 
have shrunk to 305 pounds or around there by 
the meat becoming drained. To sum it up, the 
house would have gained 6 per cent, in curing, or 
more, if left longer in pickle, and gives to the 
purchaser 4 per cent., leaving the former 2 per 
cent, gain on the green or packing weight. Tierce 
stock v/as at one time sold by the tierce which 
probabl}^ gave rise to the marking of a tierce 
higher than what was put into it, and the same 
is done still but only used for taking-of -stock 
purposes. 



HANDLING THE HOG 93 

This 4 per cent, given to the purchaser takes 
place only when the hams are directly pulled out 
of pickle, passed over the table and put on the 
scale. In the case of hams out of pickle and 
piled on racks on the floor, the drainage to be al- 
lowed would be determined by the two parties 
or their agents agreeing on a certain per cent. 

In writing of gain in weight and drainage al- 
lowed to the purchaser on the weight he receives, 
I may mention that bellies, such as are used for 
breakfast bacon, and calas show a greater gain in 
cure than do the hams, in fact, it is most notable 
that the belly and the forepart of the hog will 
increase more in weight while curing in pickle 
than the hams or hinder part. The reason of 
this is that the latter are of a closer texture or 
formation than the former and will not absorb 
so much pickle. Drainage is weight allowed to 
the purchaser to cover that which is made by 
the absorbed pickle, the majority of which will 
drain or evaporate away in the course of a week 
in the case of hams, if allowed to remain out 



94 HANDLING THE HOG 

of pickle. This drainage is calculated at 4 per 
cent, on hams, 5 per cent, on calas and bellies, 5 
per cent, on beef, etc., and when given in full 
the meat must come directly out of pickle ; should 
it be any time lying on a truck or on sacks the 
drainage will then be allowed as already de- 
scribed. This, of course, relates to the wholesale 
trade. 

This cala mentioned here so often is a con- 
traction of the name California, and is a cut 
made out of the shoulder and v/as known as 
Cala, or California ham, or picnic ham, but un- 
der the new ruling of the Department of Agri- 
culture the word ham is deceptive in this case, 
and the cut must be called Cala or California, or 
picnic shoulders. 



HANDLING THE HOG 95 



CHAPTER XL 

Packing of Tierce Stock — Blowing off to 
Detect Leaks — Breaking Down the 
Piles and the Reason it is Done. 

To return to the packing of the tierce stock. 
As soon as the draft is weighed, 295 pounds in 
case of hams and 287 pounds in case of calas, 
the man packing or his assistant will sprinkle a 
little fine salt in the bottom of the tierce and 
proceed to lay his hams in, after they are pump- 
ed, butts down the first tier, then a slight shake 
of salt to prevent the hams sticking, his next tier 
or row will be put in shanks down and so on each 
alternate tier until all of the draft is in the 
tierce, shaking fine salt each time to prevent, as 
before, sticking. The tierce is then wheeled out 
to the cooper, who puts in the head and tightens 



96 HANDLING THE HOG 

it up, ''blowing off" the tierce to make sure it is 
perfectly tight and that it will not leak. This 
''blowing off" means boring a hole, say % inch, 
in the head, applying a hose carrying compressed 
air so as to put the tierce, inside, under pressure, 
when, if not perfectly tight, the air will force its 
way out through any weak spot and can be at 
once detected and the cooper can correct the 
fault. This "blowing off" some years ago was 
done by the cooper with his mouth instead of 
compressed air, but, for sanitary reasons, this 
method has been done away with. After the 
cooper is done with the tierce it is taken in hand 
by the "brander," who, with a stencil plate, will 
brand the head, showing the firm's name, the 
goods contained therein and the weight (300 
pounds), as also the number of pieces and the 
date. It is then rolled to w^hat is known as the 
''pickle bed," where the bung is knocked in by 
the pickler, who then inserts the nozzle of the 
pickle hose and fills the tierce with pickle and 
then puts in a new bung, when it is ready to be 



HANDLING THE HOG 97 

taken away to the floor or place where it is to 
be piled. 

From some cooperage factories the tierqes run 
very uneven, so that when they are packed with 
hams they will take all the way from twelve to 
fifteen gallons of pickle, while a well-made lot of 
tierces will not vary half a gallon. This is a 
very important feature in the curing of hams, 
as there will not be that uniformity of cure 
which should be so much desired owing to the 
difference in the amount of pickle in each; the 
greater quantity of pickle to a given amount of 
meat the greater the quantity of salt to be ab- 
sorbed by that meat. In getting a lot of new 
tierces the cooper shop, to where they should be 
delivered, should look out for any irregularity in 
size, and repack such. 

In the piling of the tierces, after being pickled, 
they are handled by six men who form the piling 
gang: the first tier is laid down, care and atten- 
tion being given to them so that they will lay 
perfectly even and in line. After the end tierce 
is "chocked" so that they cannot move, the next 



98 HANDLING THE HOG 

tier is started by lifting the tierces on top of the 
former row, great care given to the exactness 
with which they are kept square, otherwise when 
the piling is finished you will have a very un- 
sightly piece of work and also a dangerous one, 
as, if the overhead tiers should overhang they 
are apt to come down. 

As each tierce is thrown up the end must be 
closely watched in case of any leakage, if the 
tierce should be allowed to fall too heavily; the 
third tier is thrown on top of the second, two 
lifts being made in this case, the first from the 
floor to the top of an old tierce known as a 
"dolly" and then from there to the pile on top 
of the second row. After the tierces are piled 
three high they are allowed to stand for ten days. 
Some break them down before, but, with the 
rolling they've already had, ten days will be time 
enough to repile them. The top end tierce is 
marked on the bilge with the name of the prod- 
uct, pieces, average and date of piling. This is 
done with chalk by the piling gang when the lot 
or section is finished. As all the different aver- 



HANDLING THE HOG 99 

ages must be kept separate so that there will be 
no "mix up" by finding two or three averages 
in one place and some of the same kind in an- 
other, great judgment must be used by the man 
in charge of the piling gang in getting a suitable 
place for an average or lot so that there will be 
no loss of room. Calas will, of course, be kept 
separate from hams. 

After ten days the pile may be broken down 
and repiled in another place. If the breaking 
down is done by a good man the tierces will re- 
ceive no injury, as they will be eased down to 
the floor so that the sound cannot be detected. 
In the hands of a careless man all kinds of dam- 
age may be done, such as breaking "chines," 
springing leaks, etc. The object of breaking 
down and rolling to another part of the floor and 
repiled is for the purpose of stirring up the meat 
and circulating the pickle, and this operation 
takes the place of the overhauling in the vat 
stock, before described. 

After this breaking down and repiling they 
are again broken down at the end of fifteen days 



loo HANDLING THE HOG 

and again replied. They are again broken down 
a third time, rolled away to another part of the 
floor, perhaps only two sections, or about 35 
feet, and replied four tiers high, four tiers being 
an indication that the breaking down and re- 
piling of that lot is finished. Great care must be 
taken in picking out a man who is to run the 
piling gang, as it is a very important post, more 
so than many consider it, as on him will partly 
depend the safety of your meat in curing. He 
must keep his eyes opened for any leaks started 
by throwing up the tierces, see that any leaky 
tierces are taken out, see that the piling is per- 
fectly square and that the floor is kept clean and 
dry where his piling is being done. 

Some piling gangs have a habit of using saw- 
dust on the floor to keep from slipping, but it 
should not be tolerated, as, when it gets mixed 
up with old pickle, especially beef pickle, it is 
apt to cause a smell that is very obnoxious. I 
had an experience of this once. On going around 
a floor in which nothing was stored except beef 
hams in tierces one day, I fancied I detected a 



HANDLING THE HOG loi 

slight odor, but so slight that on closer inspec- 
tion I could not find the cause and the smell 
seemed to vanish. A few days afterwards I was 
going over the same ground, and this time the 
odor was so pronounced that I was certain that 
one or more tierces had run dry before the pickle 
had gotten into the meat and the latter was 
spoiling. I immediately got a piling gang to 
work breaking down a row of tierces, sounding 
each tierce, but could find nothing in the shape 
of a dry one, and not until four rows or 
a whole section was broken down and cleared 
out did I find the cause of the smell, and it was 
pretty "loud" by this time. I found that it was 
caused by sawdust that the piling gang had used 
to stand on, becoming saturated with some old 
pickle, and as its age increased it gave off that 
smell which might be expected from a dry tierce 
in which the beef had gone bad. The expense 
of the work coupled with the anxiety it caused 
me decided me to abolish the use of sawdust 
where piling was being done. Coarse salt, or 
Michigan fine, will answer the purpose equally 



102 HANDLING THE HOG 

well and there is no danger of any offensive 
odor arising from it. 

The last piling, or the four high, requires 
more care even than any of the other pilings, 
as it is so high that the full gang, six men, will 
be required to accomplish it. The tierce is lift- 
ed from the floor to the "dolly" and allowed to 
rest there a few moments while it is straightened 
and laid in proper position, as no piling gang 
who thoroughly understands the work will at- 
tempt to throw it up until it is in a certain posi- 
tion on the "dolly," in fact, it is amusing to 
watch them at times and see the antics that the 
"boss" of the gang will cut in sizing up the posi- 
tion of the tierce so that it will be in the necessary 
place. Two men get at each end and one at 
either end with a barrel stick, which he places 
under the "chine," which is known as a "stick 
lift," and at a given signal the tierce is thrown 
up, and if the gang is careful and in the habit 
of working together, it will just go high enough 
to clear the other tier and land so lightly that 
you will hardly hear it fall ; it is then squared in 



HANDLING THE HOG 103 

its place. If you have a piling gang that lets 
the tierces fall hard, find out who is the cause 
of it and change him, or them, at once, as while 
a tierce is pretty substantial, it is very easy in 
this way to start it leaking. In a large house 
those men do nothing else and after a little prac- 
tice will, or ought to, work together like a well- 
regulated piece of mechanism. 



104 HANDLING THE HOG 



CHAPTER Xn. 

Averaging and Overhauling Bellies — At- 
tention TO Cleanliness and Tempera- 
ture — Department Head Should Under- 
stand Chemistry. 

We have now finished up the packing and 
curing of hams in vats and tierces, and the rules 
which have been given governing the handling 
of this stock will also apply to calas, shoulders, 
etc., cured in sweet pickle, as also of another 
product closely allied to the cala — that is, the 
cala butts, sausage meat, boneless ham, or what- 
ever appellation is wished to be given to this 
class of goods. In packing there is, of course, 
no pumping; but the packer's assistant must 
keep up a continual shaking of fine salt while 
the meat is being put into the tierce; this, as 



HANDLING THE HOG 105 

already mentioned, is to keep the meat from 
sticking together, as it otherwise would, and 
more so in the case of this "sausage meat'' — so 
much so that there would be positive danger of 
it sticking so firmly as to form lumps, to the 
exclusion of the pickle, with the result that there 
would most likely be a lot of sour meat when the 
tierce was opened. The heavy sprinkling of 
salt will add materially to the strength of the 
pickle, so allowance should be made, in mixing 
it, for the salting which the meat will receive. 
In some houses a different strength pickle is 
made for this meat, but in others the regular ham 
pickle is used with good results if the meat is 
required just as soon as it is cured; carrying it 
long in pickle of the strength mentioned, with 
the addition of salt sprinkled on it during pack- 
ing, makes it too salty. It is subject to the same 
overhauling and pilings that calas are. 

Bellies, when there is a demand for the meat, 
as fast as cured, are put in vats, skin down, 
with a shake of fine salt on each layer until the 
last layer is reached, when it should be placed 



io6 HANDLING THE HOG 

face down, the last piece having a tag attached 
to it which should hang outside the vat, having 
all the data concerning the contents on it, as 
in case of the hams. All the vats in the house 
being of uniform size, those used for bellies will 

be the same as for hams, but instead of packing 
them at 1,400, as in the case of the latter, they 
should be packed at 1,300, as from the formation 
of the belly it will lay closer together than will 
the hams, so a greater opportunity must be given 
it to raise or separate when the pickle is put on, 
hence the packing at the lighter average. 

Bellies will, of course, be averaged and 
"scaled'* before packing. The first "overhaul- 
ing" in vats of bellies should take place three 
days after packing, and the other overhauling at 
intervals of ten days. Bellies do not require such 
long chilling as do hams, and may be packed on 
the day they are cut, nor need the temperature 
of the curing room be so low, 38° F. being a 
good one. Have the vats washed thoroughly 
clean, a uniform weight put in each vat, packed 
no heavier than described, with the overhaulings 



HANDLING THE HOG 107 

taking place as directed, and there will be no 
cause of complaint when the bellies are cured. 

Pay particular attention to the cleanliness of 
the floors and also to the temperature, as while 
the bellies will not be so long in curing as hams, 
remember your meat is in a pickle of which 
cane sugar forms a part, and consequently fer- 
mentation is going on, though you see no sign 
of it, and the higher the temperature the greater 
the activity of this fermentation. Fermentation 
is a matter that has been brought prominently 
forward in this book, simply because it is danger- 
ous beyond a certain point — dangerous to the 
flavor and carrying properties of the meat, and 
it is a subject that is not given the importance 
in packing houses that it should get from men 
who should be thoroughly conversant with the 
advantages gained by it, and also the danger to 
look forward to from it when it has passed a 
certain stage. 

Knowledge of enzymes, fermentation and that 
ilk are more in the chemist's line than that of 
the old packinghouse man, but unfortunately 



io8 HANDLING THE HOG 

for the house that employs him the chemist 
knows nothing of the work, nor will the depart- 
ment head call him in and ask him his opinion 
on matters of the kind, for the reason that he 
argues, "What the Hades does he know about 
curing meat ?" or he is so wrapped up in his own 
importance and knowledge that any inquiry from 
an outsider would be detracting from that knowl- 
edge and dignity. 

All this is wrong — very wrong — and the de- 
partment head would soon admit it if he took 
the chemist into his confidence in the matter 
and listened to the explanations which he ought 
to be able to give him on the different changes 
in pickles, where fermentation commences and 
stops, where and what arrests it, when and why 
sugar ceases to ferment and becomes a curative 
agent, etc. These and thousands of other things 
he will enlighten the department head on, but 
the chemist must be made familiar with the 
work to give an accurate analysis. 

I do not mean to detract one iota from the de- 
partment head nor take any of the credit away 



HANDLING THE HOG 109 

that belongs to him, but to handle meat thor- 
oughly and successfully he should be possessed 
of a certain amount of chemical knowledge that 
to-day is rarely found among this class of pack- 
inghouse men, let his reputation as a curer of 
meat be ever so high. Some of the older heads 
will perhaps sneer at this statement and say they 
can cure meat without a chemist's aid ; well, per- 
haps they can, but how about all the spoiled meat 
that went to the tank — that is going to-day? 
How about those "sour bodies" that are blamed 
on the killing of "fresh hogs"? The chemist 
works on facts, and each step he takes is positive- 
ly assured by his calculations before he puts it 
into effect. 

The packinghouse man — be he head of de- 
partment or general superintendent — in the 
curing of meat works without that absolute 
surety that should be his. If his meat comes out 
right his reputation as a meat curer is added 
to; if some of his meat goes wrong — well, it 
was a "little off," and he will go to the depart- 
ment clerk and get him to find out if "fresh 



no HANDLING THE HOG 

hogs" were killed on the date of that packing. 
The department clerk may find it was so. The 
"fresh hog" story was exploded long ago; still, 
some cling to it at times. 

As against the chemist, the department head 
thinks he knows all about it, but he doesn't 
know all that he should know. For instance, he 
thinks sugar is the cause of the soft, mellow 
flavor of a fine S. P. ham. Sugar produces it, 
but it is not the cause of the mellow flavor. 
He thinks that saltpeter gives the red color to 
meat, but again he is mistaken; it produces, but 
it is not the cause. In a former chapter I ex- 
plained this. 

In addition to a good knowledge of chemistry 
the department head should also know something 
of biology, and with those acquisitions he cer- 
tainly would be able to handle meats and carry 
S. P. meats in better shape than they are carried 
to-day in many houses, either An storage or in 
transit from one place to another. 

It was my good fortune to meet a chemist of 
the house, whom I took through the department 



HANDLING THE HOG iii 

and made him familiar with the modus operandi. 
It was entirely new to him, and he was delight- 
ed. In return he gave me information that clear- 
ed up several things which I was not very clear 
on, and I am indebted to him for some chemical 
knowledge which I possess and which I found 
very beneficial in the general handling of meat 
and its legitimate curing agents. 

That the department head should become 
acquainted in this line is emphasized by the fact 
that a paper devoted to the packing industry in 
this country puts forth this : "The question of 
proper temperature for curing storage is not so 
decidedly important if the meats are properly 
and thoroughly chilled prior to putting in salt or 
pickle; anything around 40° F. being perfectly 
safe." This was the last paragraph of an article 
giving a sweet pickle cure. 

The statement may have emanated from an 
office man or a lunatic, but certainly never from 
a practical man who understood the subject 
thoroughly. Did the person who made the state- 
ment know anything at all about meat curing, he 



112 HANDLING THE HOG 

would not have any "ifs" about the chilling of 
the meats, and he would also know that the tem- 
perature of his curing room was not regulated 
by the conditions of his meat. For the informa- 
tion of the maker of that statement and for those 
who gave it serious attention — if there were any 
— let me tell them that it is most decidedly im- 
portant to have a properly regulated tempera- 
ture, and that 40° F. is not safe. I mean pickle 
containing the ordinary amount of sweetening, 
such as is used by houses in general, and such 
a pickle as was described in the article of which 
the quotation is a part. The amount of sweet- 
ening used by each house differs very little in 
the ''regular" hams. 

Refrigeration is used for the purpose, prin- 
cipally, on sweet pickled meat, of keeping down 
fermentation; otherwise the temperature could 
be carried safely at 40° F., or even above that, 
in the case of hams being cured in plain pickle. 

In one of the earlier chapters I gave as near 
a definition as possible of the amount of refrig- 
eration to be used in curing meat (hams), and if 



HANDLING THE HOG 113 

my memory serves me I said *'hams should be 
cured in as low a temperature as possible, com- 
patible with dispatch," giving 37° F. as the most 
suitable. Thirty-five or thirty-six would make 
the process too slow for the requirements of 
the trade. Higher than 37° would, in the case 
of medium or heavy hams, allow fermentation 
too much scope, so much so that, even though the 
pickle, when cured, will show no sign of it in 
thickness or "ropiness" directly after "smoke," 
the rancidity in the fat caused by the free fatty 
acid fermentation, accelerated by the sweetening, 
will be easily detected. 

Of course, it makes a material difference 
whether the hams are required for "dog meat" 
or for the table of an epicure. If the former, 
little things like fermentation do not count, as 
canine tastes are rather depraved, but it is the 
boast of every packing house that I ever heard 
of that the hams were suited to epicurean pal- 
ates, in which case fermentation must be kept 
down below a certain point, both for flavor and 



114 HANDLING THE HOG 

carrying purposes, which are one and the same 
thing. 

Thanks to the paper which made the assertion 
here quoted, I think I have proved that the 
curing department head should be in closer touch 
with the house chemist and have some heart-to- 
heart talks with him, which will ultimately re- 
sult in clearing the brain of the former of a 
lot of fogginess and give better results to his 
house and better hams and bacon to the country. 
Get in and have a talk with the chemist, and 
among the many things he will impart to you, 
and which is an inexhaustive subject in connec- 
tion with S. P. meats, will be an analysis of 
fermentation. Just now you think sugar, in ad- 
dition to its sweetening properties, is a curative 
agent, but he will show you that it is a fermenta- 
tive one, and does not become curative before 
it reaches a certain percentage, which is a long 
way above what is used in the sweetest pickle. 
When it reaches this proportion its fermenta- 
tive properties will be killed and it will then be 
entirely curative. Sounds perhaps strange. 



HANDLING THE HOG 115 

doesn^t it? but there are more strange things in 
connection with meat curing, especially S. P. 
meats, than the ordinary meat curer ever dream- 
ed of. Nor will he understand it until the time 
comes when chemistry and biology are brought 
in and considered necessary requirements for 
the practical meat curer. There was a time when 
the amount of sour meat was appalling. To-day 
it is much less, and in some houses there is none. 
This is due to care and good judgment, and most 
of all to increased facilities in the shape of 
better rooms, more even refrigeration, etc.; in 
fact, in any well-regulated house there is not a 
shadow of excuse for sour meat. 



ii6 HANDLING THE HOG 



CHAPTER Xin. 

Why Tongues in Cure Require a Different 
Temperature than Hams — How Natural 
Juices are Extracted and Again Ab- 
sorbed. 

Tongues are about the only staple goods that 
are left of the hog to go into S. P. As the 
initial step in curing hams is taken on the hang- 
ing floor, so is the initial step in curing tongues 
taken on the killing floor, and the dispatch and 
cleanliness with which they are handled there 
are a sure indication of the results to be expect- 
ed later on when the tongue is cured. 

In some houses, especially the smaller ones, 
they are allowed to lay around a good deal be- 
fore they are given a wash. I include beef as 
well as pork and lamb tongues in this. In the 



HANDLING THE HOG 117 

case of beef tongues they should be handled im- 
mediately after they leave the hands of the 
tonguer. As before described they should be 
thrown into a tub of cold water and brushed 
singly to remove the slime attached to them, and 
also trimmed and then thrown into another vat 
of ice water, from where they are forked into 
a slatted truck and taken to the curing depart- 
ment, where they are hung up, singly, on racks 

for the purpose. Temperature, 39° or 40° F. 
Beef tongues should be treated in m-uch the same 

way. Directly they are taken out of the head 

they should be washed and scrubbed with a 

brush and hung up on racks to cool, from where 

they are taken to the curing department and hung 

up to chill. Lamb tongues as described before 

are sent to the sausage department to be scalded, 

skinned and trimmed, then taken to the curing 

department and spread on clean racks or hung 

up to chill. 

Lamb tongues, when sufficient are not on hand 

for a vat, may be. put into a tierce, and when 

two or three tierces are filled they may, with 



ii8 HANDLING THE HOG 

the regular day's packing, be put into a vat. The 
temperature for the chilling of tongues of all 
kinds is best at 39° F. to 40° F., and 24 hours 
in this temperature will not leave a trace of 
animal heat in them. 

When ready to pack the beef and pork tongues 
have your vat, or vats, thoroughly washed with 
scalding water and soda and properly rinsed in 
clean cold water. Place the vat in position and 
put about half the required quantity of pickle in 
the vat and then put in the tongues without any 
regularity until the required weight of 1,400 is 
in, the tongues, of course, having been previously 
weighed. Fill the vat up with pickle, put in the 
headings and brace down with the crosspiece. 

All small meats packed in vats or other large 
receptacles should be pickled in this manner, as 
there is a greater surety of the pickle mixing up 
thoroughly with them than if the vat was pack- 
ed and then pickled. 

The pickling of tongues is done with the very 
strongest sweet pickle mixed, and 24 hours after 
packing, if the pickle on beef tongues is tested 



HANDLING THE HOG 119 

with the salometer it will be found to have lost 
15° to 20° in strength, due to dilution by the 
natural juices extracted by the pickle. Beef 
tongues will in this way keep losing in weight 
for 30 days, when they remain at a standstill, 
but in a few days will commence to gain, and if 
left in pickle for 30 days longer, or in all 60 
days from date of packing, they will have gained 
to such an extent that they will then be the 
weight originally packed, or in other words, 
what the tongue lost by the extraction of the 
natural juices, it will gain by the absorption of 
pickle. 

The large shrinkage in the beef tongue is due 
to the great amount of moisture in it — 70 per 
cent. Pork tongues will also lose in weight, but 
not so much as the beef tongue, and will com- 
mence to gain in 20 to 25 days. Tongues should 
be overhauled on the second or third day at the 
latest, and are handled with a fork. They will 
require the usual overhaulings given to hams, 
etc., and will cure in 25 to 30 days in a tempera- 
ture of 39°. Should there be any doubt of 



120 HANDLING THE HOG 

tongues being cured a longitudinal cut in the 
tongue underneath will easily satisfy any one 
acquainted with them, whether they are cured or 
not, by their color, whether they are required 
for "smoke," canning or sausage room. 

We have always mentioned tongues as being 
cured in a temperature of 39° F. as against 37° 
F. for hams. The reason of this is that the 
tongue is cured before there is any danger of 
the pickle thickening or becoming "ropy" from 
fermentation in, say, thirty days, and in the case 
I had in mind at the time of making that state- 
ment the tongues were always used as fast as 
cured. In a colder temperature they would, of 
course, take longer to cure, but, on the other 
hand, the more gradual the curing in this, as in 
all S. P. meats, the better the flavor. While there 
is a certain amount of fermentation going on 
during the curing of the tongues, it is not so 
much, or, at least, it does not affect this class 
of meat so much, as it will the fat of ham and 
bellies, as the latter is of an entirely different con- 
struction, and has in itself already that constitu- 



HANDLING THE HOG 121 

ent, free fatty acid, which, with the micro-organ- 
ism, saccharomycetes, induced by the cane sugar, 
will set up fermentation with greater activity, so 
that when the house requires them tongues can 
be cured in a higher temperature, consequently 
quicker, without any danger from fermentation, 
but I would not consider it prudent to go higher 
than 40° F. for a temperature. Should the 
house require the tongues very quickly, give them 
two extra overhaulings, which will hasten the 
cure very much. 

The curing of tongues in S. P. is very simple, 
requiring only care and judgment in addition to 
the curing agents, but to hear of the process 
through some authorities it Vv^ould make a per- 
son unacquainted with the work imagine that it 
was a very intricate one. 

One authority who is supposed to know all 
about it, says beef tongues should be first put 
into an 80° plain pickle for 24 hours, and gives 
the reason for so doing that this will take all the 
moisture out of the tongue, or all the saliva, as 
it is termed. The tongue has been, as already 



122 HANDLING THE HOG 

described as being, washed with a brush on the 
killing floor to remove all the saliva from the 
outer part, so that there is nothing of this kind 
adhering to it. 

This authority goes on to state that after re- 
maining 24 hours in this plain pickle the tongues 
are taken out and put into an entirely different 
pickle — a sweet one— -to cure, and which, by the 
ingredients mentioned, will be about a 70° pickle. 

It certainly is surprising how dense some men 
in this line are, and men from whom better 
judgment might be expected. Of course, the 
tongue, as I have already shown, contains a 
large percentage of moisture, but instead of put- 
ting goods into a plain pickle of 80° to extract 
this moisture, why not put them at once into a 
90° sweet pickle to cure in? 

This moisture which is extracted is the nat- 
ural juices of the tongue and the "life" of it, if 
I may be permitted to use such an expression, 
and instead of curing the tongue in this first 



HANDLING THE HOG 123 

pickle where it will absorb again some of those 
juices, this authority would have you take it 
away after it has lost those juices, or the best 
part of them, and put it into an entirely new 
pickle to cure in, so that all benefit by absorption 
of those natural juices in the pickle is entirely 
lost to it. 

I have shown that there is a great loss in 
strength of tongue pickle the first 24 hours, as 
the absorption of the salt forces the natural 
juices out; but as they become mixed with the 
pickle, and a part of it, they are again absorbed 
— in a diluted form, it is true, but still absorbed. 

I am pretty well acquainted with the handling 
and curing of meats, but I have yet to learn that 
the entire loss of the natural juices, or part of 
them, is any benefit to the meat. They are bound 
to come out, but why not give the meat an op- 
portunity of regaining some, at least, of them, 
and cure it in the pickle in which they are? 

Chill and cure the tongues as I have directed, 
and there will be no trouble with them. I can 



124 HANDLING THE HOG 

pledge my word that I never saw a sour tongue 
but once, and that was in a house where I went 
to see some beef tongues that had been purchased 
by the people whom I was with. 



HANDLING THE HOG 125 



CHAPTER XIV. 

The Storage Room — Daylight Should Be 
Excluded — Best to Have Piping at Sides, 
Not Overhead. 

The handling of the hams and bellies, calas, 
etc., were left at that stage where they were 
nearly ready for "smoke," shipment, or storage if 
there was no demand for them. We will say 
that the demand for hams and bellies was small, 
though a large stock was in pickle, with hogs, on 
foot cheap, which meant big "runs" and con- 
sequently big killing and cutting, so that the room 
for packing was required. 

Were the premises extensive enough, as I 
once before intimated, with proper facilities for 
so doing, this stock could be carried better in 
pickle by turning on the refrigeration and drop- 



126 HANDLING THE HOG 

ping the temperature to around 20° above, which 
would so solidify the meat without freezing that 
it would absorb no more salt, while, being in 
pickle, it would be protected from the influence 
of the air. 

I have already mentioned free fatty acid, which 
is a component part of the fat of hams, calas, 
bellies, etc. (ask your chemist or lard man), and 
it occurs where rancidity does not exist; but it 
has been demonstrated by chemistry that ran- 
cidity is caused by the action of light and air 
upon the free fatty acid aforementioned, so that 
you will readily see, I hope, the reason why this 
class of meat will hold better when protected 
from light and air. But, being unable to have 
it this way, the next best plan is to have a 
storage room (which every house of any im- 
portance should have), a room which is so fitted 
with refrigeration that it can be kept at 20° F. 
Have daylight excluded, or, if there are win- 
dows in it which are fitted as cold storage win- 
dows, let the glass be yellow, or covered with a 
yellow semi-transparent composition, so that the 



HANDLING THE HOG 127 

light which enters will be non-actinic. Should 
the room be "piped," let it be so around the 
sides, not overhead. 

The storage room being all ready, clean off 
from the top of the vats any fungi that may have 
grown there and pull the hams out of pickle in 
the curing room and pile them on racks to drain, 
when, after two or three days, they are taken to 
the storage room and wiped clean, on a tempo- 
rary bench or table; not rubbed over, but wiped 
thoroughly clean and dry with cheesecloth, and 
then neatly piled, skin down, on the floor till 
the last tier, which should be placed face down. 
A space should be left all around clear of the 
pipes, if any, and the hams should be supported 
by racks braced from the sides of the room. 
Three feet will be high enough for the pile; any 
higher would cause too much pressure on the 
lower tiers. 

Hams carried in this way will come out bright 
and clear and free from any rancidity in the fat, 
but if the room is large enough it would be pref- 



128 HANDLING THE HOG 

erable to pack the hams in clean tiers, headed up, 
and "blown off." 

The storage room should have only one en- 
trance, so that there will not be a current of air, 
the door shutting tightly and kept closed unless 
when absolutely necessary. 

Bellies handled in the same manner will come 
out. at the end of three or four months, as the 
case may be, looking better than when they were 
put in there, and will take a very pretty smoke 
if they were put in storage fresh cured, so that 
they would require little more than a wash be- 
fore going to "smoke." 

A storage room with half to one million 
pounds of bellies on storage in this way is, in- 
deed, a very pretty sight, with its white painted 
walls and clean, dry floor, perfectly odorless, 
and the department head may well point with 
pride to the stock stored there, and its bright, 
clean look. 

I do not think, though, essentially necessary 
as it is, that every house has a storage room of 



HANDLING THE HOG 129 

this kind for carrying excess cured stock — not 
even some of the largest houses. 

It is a great mistake to carry S. P. hams, calas 
or bellies in pickle in the ordinary temperature 
after being cured, as they go on, day after day, 
absorbing salt until, when they are required for 
"smoke," they have to undergo such a "soaking" 
in the washroom that the chances are in favor 
of them being spoiled, as, let the foreman in 
the w'ashroom be ever so good a man, he is 
liable to give the meat more than it really re- 
quires, with the result that, in the case of the 
hams and calas, sour butts will ensue. 

A properly equipped storage or carrying room 
is as essential to the up-to-date packing house 
as any other part of it, and, having a surplus 
stock of hams, calas or bellies coming along, 
they should be pulled out as soon as cured and 
put into this storage in the manner described. 
Of course, some judgment will have to be used 
as to how much should be put in storage, ma- 
king due allowance for the requirements of the 
trade. 



130 HANDLING THE HOG 

The bellies mentioned here as being carried in 
the storage room are the ordinary S. P. com- 
mon clear, of all averages; not the light 6 to 8 
and 8 to lo-pound bellies which make the fancy 
breakfast bacon, and which are cured in a much 
sweeter pickle. So much sweetening is used in 
this pickle that after ten or twelve days out of 
pickle, piled on racks on the floor in the curing 
room, fermentation can be easily detected by 
smell in the fat. 

There is such a demand for this fancy break- 
fast bacon that there is not very often a surplus ; 
in fact, it is more the other way, and there is a 
shortage now and again. Still, there are times 
when there is a surplus, and instead of trying to 
carry it as the fancy grade, it were much better 
to turn the excess over to the "smoke" house, 
when it is required, as common clear bellies, for 
ordinary breakfast bacon; as, from the large 
amount of cane sugar used in the curing pickle, 
it is impossible to carry it any length of time 
in perfect order. 

I have seen this class of bellies put in storage 



HANDLING THE HOG 131 

such as I have described; seen them sent to the 
freezer on being cured, and carried in a frozen 
state ; seen them "smoked" when just cured, and 
then put in the freezer after they were properly 
cooled, and carried there till wanted, when they 
were thawed out and given a light "smoke" 
again, and while this latter plan seemed to carry 
them with better results than any of the others, 
they were not at all the bellies when "smoked" 
just as they were cured, all due to fermentation, 
which, from the greater amount of sugar in the 
curing, shows greater activity than it does in the 
common clear belly which does not contain so 
much sweetening. 

Perhaps to people not accustomed to this fancy 
grade of breakfast bacon the fermented flavor 
would not be very noticeable, but to anyone in 
the habit of using it often for breakfast and 
whose sensibilities of taste are not blunted, the 
slightest change is very easily detected; the 
presence of salt, while of course there, is hardly 
perceptible, as it is overcome by the soft mellow 



132 HANDLING THE HOG 

flavor given by fermentation in its early stages 
and before it has passed a certain point. 

As mentioned previously, sweet pickled meats 
are intended for quick consumption, and this 
fancy grade of bacon or ham more than any 
other. 

Some of my friends may think I have fer- 
mentation of the brain, I have so persistently 
brought the subject forward. Not so, my dear 
reader, it is the other fellow who is affected in 
that manner — I mean the one who gives the mat- 
ter no consideration, laughs at my statements, 
and thinks he knows everything about pickles 
and the curing of meat. Well, he has another 
"think" coming. 

Should there be a demand all along for hams, 
calas or bellies, the smoke house foreman will 
call on the S. P. department for what he requires. 

If S. P. hams are properly handled, and the 
proper strength pickle used in their curing, and 
if then taken as soon as cured, they will require 
very little "soaking" — less than half an hour — 



HANDLING THE HOG 133 

in fact, very little more than a wash; and the 
fancy grade, in which there is so much sweet- 
ening, will require only this wash with the hand 
brush. 



134 HANDLING THE HOG 



CHAPTER XV. 

Preparing Hams for the Smoke House — The 
Best Wood and Sawdust to Use — ^Ap- 
plication OF Steam in a Smoke House. 

When the hams are brought to the wash room 
they may be laid out on a bench to be "strung." 
Stringing means the putting of a string or cord 
through the shank by which to hang it. For the 
benefit of those who are not familiar with the 
work I will describe the stringing needle and the 
operation. 

The needle is a piece of steel eight to nine 
inches long and about as thick as an ordinary 
lead pencil, broad at the end, in which there is a 
hole, or an eye, to carry the string. The end 
of the needle is arrow-pointed and sharp. The 



HANDLING THE HOG 135 

other end is firmly fixed in a stout handle about 
five inches long. 

When the hams are laid on a bench about hip 
high, the "stringer" comes along with the needle 
in one hand and a bunch of strings in the other. 
He puts a string through the eye in the needle 
and then sticks the latter through the shank of 
the ham, and, on pulling it out the string is 
left in the shank, while the man performs the 
operation on the next ham, and so on, going so 
rapidly that a good man will keep three men 
tying, who are following him up. 

As each lot of hams which are laid out on 
the bench are finished by the men tying, they 
are thrown into a large vat to be soaked, or, 
in the case of very mild cured hams, which re- 
quire no soaking, they are passed on to the tub 
or vat where they are held by the string and 
washed with a brush in hot water, 150° F., in 
which some salsoda has been dissolved. After 
a thorough cleaning in this water, which should 
be kept at this temperature, the hams as they 
are finished are hung on an iron frame or cradle. 



136 HANDLING THE HOG 

or on "trees," either form being hung on an over- 
head rail, which goes to the elevator, v^hich also 
carries a rail that connects with the one in the 
wash room when the elevator is down, so that 
the frame or cradle loaded with hams is shoved 
on the rail in the elevator and carried upstairs to 
either floor wished of the smoke house. 

For calas the same operation is gone through. 
In the stringing of bellies they are laid on the 
bench, with what is known as the shoulder end 
outward, and two strings, one in each corner of 
this end, are passed through with the needle. In 
addition, bellies are, or should be "skewered" — 
that is, a skewer passed through the extreme end 
by which they are to be hung, passed through 
the center and breadth of the belly, so that when 
the belly comes out of "smoke" it will show the 
end smooth and square instead of being pulled 
at the points where the strings take the weight 
of the meat. 

The hanging of the meat on a cradle or on 
"trees" traveling on an overhead rail in the 
wash room would indicate to the observer that 



HANDLING THE HOG 137 

the smokehouse was also railed, and such is the 
case in the modern house. The advantages to be 
derived from this plan over the old one of having 
each piece of meat hung on a stick, laid on a 
4x4 timber, are many. In the first place it is 
cheaper, next it is cleaner and more sanitary; 
again, the meat receives less handling, which is 
a very important feature after "smoke," as the 
less it is handled or thrown around the brighter 
and more attractive it looks. 

The bright color given by a nicely regulated 
fire is very pretty, but also very fleeting, and the 
greatest of care must be taken of the meat both 
during the time it is in "smoke" and afterwards 
out of "smoke." The color will become dull and 
fade under some conditions, but a bright appear- 
ance can be prolonged if care is exercised. The 
killing floor is the place to clean the hog, and too 
much water cannot be used in connection with 
this cleaning, as the more there is used the 
greater the chances are of giving a good, clean 
skin. There are hogs whose skin will not have 
a bright, clean look, no matter how much you 



138 HANDLING THE HOG 

try to make them look so, but hogs of this 
description are in the minority, and with a good 
scald the majority of the "kill" will show up 
with a good skin. Should the scalder have his 
water too cold or too hot the hog will not 
present the bright appearance so much desired, 
and nowhere is it more apparent than just as .the 
hams, etc., come out of "smoke." There are 
cases where the scalder is hardly to blame for 
the irregularity of the temperature of the water 
in the scalding tub. The "house" or its manage- 
ment is often in fault in not having a tub of the 
proper dimensions, whereby a lower tempera- 
ture could be carried and so get a cleaner and 
more even scald. If the scalding and cleaning 
on the killing floor has not been done properly, 
no washing or scrubbing that can be given the 
meat afterward will make up for this neglect. 

If every detail is given the attention which it 
should get from the time the hog was "stuck" 
you will have a bright even smoke on the meat 
that cannot otherwise be obtained. The smoother 
the skin the more evenly will the smoke color 



HANDLING THE HOG 139 

appear. Even a really rough-skinned hog will 
show up good out of "smoke" if it was properly 
scalded and afterward cleaned, so that there was 
no dirt left embedded in the skin. 

So many different methods of handling are 
in vogue for the smoking of meats on a large 
scale,, and each of them turning out a good 
"smoke," that it is impossible to lay down a rule 
as standard by which the work shall be done. 
The build of the house, size, height, etc., will 
have an effect, and my experience of smokehouse 
men has led me to believe that if they get the 
hams, etc., with a bright, clean skin, they will 
turn out the smoked article in beautiful form. 

In the packing houses in general there is al- 
ways, or nearly always, a want of room; con- 
sequently smokehouses are run up as many as 
three or four floors, whereas if there were room 
enough the houses that were built with just one 
floor above the fires would be the most satis- 
factory. The "smoke" would be more even and 
shrinkage could be more accurately figured 
than shrinkage figured on what takes place in a 



I40 HANDLING THE HOG 

house of, say, three stories high. This is not a 
true one ; it is an average shrink. Some will say 
that each floor is weighed separately in and out, 
but I doubt it. The cost is too much, however. 
I maintain that the low house, or the one with 
the single "hanging," is the best; but, unfortu- 
nately, there is not room enough to build the 
smokehouses in this way. 

The house, after being "filled," should be al- 
lowed to drip or drain and the meat dried by 
the aid of steam pipes, with which the house 
should be fitted, having the ventilators open. 
After the meat has arrived at that stage of dry- 
ness which the smokehouse man recognizes by 
experience, start the fire, using hickory wood, 
preferably, and when well lit up and burning 
clear, nearly bank with sawdust (hickory also, 
if possible), so that the latter is kept smoulder- 
ing, giving off a good smoke, replenished when 
required and kept up for twenty-four hours, or 
longer, dependent on the class of trade the meats 
are required for. If for a trade where the 
bams are likely to be carried for some time, the 



HANDLING THE HOG 141 

smoke should be heavier and the heat by steam 
should be kept on longer to give them a better 
drying, as the dryer hams are made in smoking 
and the greater the "smoke" the longer will they 
keep or carry, but, of course, there will be a 
greater shrinkage. For the ordinary quick con- 
sumption trade hams will shrink around 6]^, per 
cent., while if they are intended for long keep- 
ing, dried and "smoked" accordingly, the shrink- 
age will be as high as 18 per cent. 

When the meat has had what is considered 
sufficient smoke, the fire should be drawn or put 
out, but the experienced smokehouse man will 
have the fire gauged in such a manner that it 
will die out at the proper time. Open up the 
house and ventilators, which had been shut, so 
as to cool the meat as quickly as possible. 

Meat can be smoked with almost any kind of 
wood, but those of resinous properties should be 
avoided. Corncobs give a good smoke, but for 
a light golden color for show purposes nothing 
equals straw. This last fades very soon, but 
when fresh on a fine skinned ham, which had 



142 HANDLING THE HOG 

been properly cleaned, it certainly has a very 
enticing look, superior to anything that can be 
done with wood smoke. 

The method of smoking meats has made very 
little advance, any more than that the rail or 
trolley system is an improvement, but there is 
very little difference in the mode of procedure 
between a first-class house smoking 30,000 and 
the farmer smoking a few hams in an inverted 
hogshead, bored with a few holes, over smoulder- 
ing sawdust. 

The application of steam in a smokehouse is 
of great benefit in the drying of the meat, so 
much so that very little heat is required from 
the fire, but a better method is that of hot water 
circulation, necessitating the use of a pump, 
which, while giving all the heat necessary, does 
not cause such a big shrinkage as do the steam 
pipes. Shrinkage of meats in smoke is a very 
important item, and in the larger houses is 
watched very closely. In the smaller houses it 
is not so much considered, or the method of re- 
ducing it to a minimum is not understood, and 



HANDLING THE HOG 143 

even then hams for the local and ordinary trade 
will show a shrink of 14 per cent, and over in 
some of these places, and with all this heavy 
shrink in some cases the hams on the inside will, 
when cut, be soft and sloppy, but the latter 
feature is not due to any defect in smoking. 

As soon as the hams are taken from the smoke- 
house they will be put in a smoked ham carry- 
ing room, which should be fitted with steam 
pipes, so that enough heat can be maintained in 
the room to take up any moisture in there com- 
ing from a damp atmosphere on the outside. In 
summer time, when it is warm and dry, there will 
be no need of steam, but on the slightest damp- 
ness appearing at any season hams or other 
cured meats will show their susceptibility to its 
influence, sweet pickled meat being affected more 
than will plain pickled, so that while any heat or 
dryness will, of course, cause further shrinkage, 
still the moisture must be kept out of the air in 
which smoked meats are carried if they are re- 
quired to be at their best in appearance when 
being shipped. 



144 HANDLING THE HOG 

Of course, the smoked meat department will 
see that an excess stock is not carried, and very 
little is smoked beyond what the immediate re- 
ouirements of the trade call for. 



HANDLING THE HOG 145 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Packing Smoked Meats for Shipment — 
Boxes Should be Perfectly Dry to Es- 
cape Mold — ^A Last Word on Boning. 

In packing smoked meats in barrels or boxes 
for shipment great care should be taken that the 
package is thoroughly dry, no matter what the 
distance they are to go or the length of time 
they are to be carried in this box or barrel. In 
a very short time, if in a box that is made up of 
wet or damp wood, mold will appear on the meat, 
and no legitimate means has yet been brought 
forward to stop or overcome the growth of this 
fungus when packed in a damp box, and the loss 
occurring in a house from this cause is at times 
deplorable, simply because no one seems to care 
whether the box for shipment is wet or dry or 
made from seasoned or green lumber. 



146 HANDLING THE HOG 

All this class of goods before wrapping or 
packing should be thoroughly wiped, giving any 
pieces which show too much dryness on the 
skin or face a rub of a cloth dipped in lard oil 
and then wiped cleanly. This is a part of the 
work that is very much neglected in some houses, 
and while a man's wages may be saved now and 
then by the omission of it, it is a false economy, 
and the foreman should in some other way, if he 
only looks around, be able to save his employer 
that day's pay, instead of doing so at the ex- 
pense of the reputation of the house for clean 
and attractive meats. 

In the smoking of beef hams and also of clods 
a heavier and a longer smoke must be given. In 
the first place the meat must be dried more, and 
again the flavor of smoke is more sought after in 
the chipped beef which this class of goods goes 
for than in the pork ham. 

If the beef which is used for chipping is not 
well dried, it will not chip or slice satisfactorily, 
and would, when put up in boxes, soon sour, so 
that it is absolutely necessary that it be well 



HANDLING THE HOG 147 

dried and firm^ and to arrive at this state it will 
have lost in smoking and drying around 30 per 
cent. Of course, some houses will put out 
smoked beef hams that will not show anything 
like this large shrinkage, but it is only an imita- 
tion of the real chipped beef, and the house that 
does it will never get a reputation for the latter. 

In writing of smoking meats, the pork ham — 
and in the foregoing paragraph the beef ham 
has only been treated — the same rule will apply 
to calas and bellies as to pork hams. 

It has been said that the best style of boned 
and tied hams was made from the green stock 
by boning and tying and then curing. I am 
aware of instances where the boned and tied ham 
is made from cured stock, and these people aver 
that it is the best form. 

I emphatically state that it is not so. From 
the other style (the one made from the green 
ham and cured) a firmer and better-shaped arti- 
cle is made, if the one who does the tying un- 
derstands it and whose occupation is other than 
that of a shoemaker alone, and the shrink in 



148 HANDLING THE HOG 

cooking is less than when made from the cured 
ham. There are houses to-day in which the 
hams are boned green and then cured before 
tying. Why is this? What is to be obtained by 
such a process, unless an undue loss of the nat- 
ural juices of the meat in consequence of the 
open condition? In a former chapter I stated 
that some people were afraid of the amount of 
sour meat which developed in the green boned 
and tied ham, and this method of curing before 
tying looks as if they were. 

I described before how easily and quickly 
fresh meat will take up taint or smell and how 
necessary it is that the hands of the workman 
should be scrupulously clean, as also the tools 
he works with, as both will rub against the in- 
side of the ham in taking out the bone. In ad- 
dition to this, in tying the ham, the man doing 
so cannot help tying up pockets of air, and the 
ham is made otherwise so solid that there is no 
escape for this air. 

In leaving small pockets containing air, which 
is heavily laden with germ, life, there is a splen- 



HANDLING THE HOG 149 

did field for the development of bacteria, as the 
chemical changes which take place, due to the 
oxidization of emulsified fats and friction of the 
hand while taking out the bone, give rise to an 
elevation of temperature, so that with the ex- 
foliated epithelium from the workman's hands 
and other foreign matter carried by hands and 
tools, combined with the albumen in the meat, 
makes a splendid culture medium for the devel- 
opment of bacteria in the presence of a favor- 
able temperature. While such a fine culture 
medium is made for the development of bacteria, 
which afterwards makes your meat unfit for use, 
it can easily be overcome. 

Just as soon as a load of boned and tied hams 
are taken to be hung up for further chilling from 
the boning and tying rooms, or preferably half 
a load, the sooner they are handled the better. 
As each ham is taken off the truck to hang up it 
is first laid on a table, and with the regular 
pumping pickle pump the ham all over, especially 
that part from which the bone was taken, but 
only one stroke at each insertion of the needle, 



150 HANDLING THE HOG 

then hang up the ham till it is considered chill- 
ed enough to pack. Treat all this stock in this 
way and there will be no "sour," as the antiseptic 
properties of the pickle will counteract the bad 
effects already mentioned and which would 
cause a sourness in the meat. 

I wish the people who made a failure of 
making their boned and tied stock from green 
hams would try this plan and see how simple it 
works, yet works like a charm in getting the 
meat sweet. This pumping immediately after 
boning need not interfere with the pumping on 
the first overhauling. 




E have designed and super- 
vised the construction of 
many abattoirs and packing 
plants in all parts of the country, 

CL We have equipped over 200 
plants with our modern, sanitary 
combination rendering and drying 
outfits, in many instances furnish- 
ing the entire equipment of the 
plant. 

d. Write for our latest catalogue 
and give us details of requirements. 

d. We can furnish references in 
your own vicinity. 



WANNENWETCH & CO. 

CITIZENS' BANK BUILDING 
BUFFALO. N. Y. 



Garbage Disposal Plants 

utilize All of Your 
Waste Products 



by using- our complete system 
for the disposal of gfarbage and 
animal offal. We build com- 
plete plants for this purpose. Also 
Rendering: Tanks, Dryers (steam 
jacketed and direct heat), Presses, 
Evaporators, Bone Mills, Screens, 
Elevators and Conveyors :: :: 



Most Complete and Economical Process for 

Extracting Grease from Tankage 

by the Use of Naphtha 



Many Plants in Successful Operation 



'• 



Bartlett-Snow 

Cleveland, Ohio 



S. Oppenheimer & Co. 

Sausage Casings, Spices 
and Butchers and Pack- 
ers Supplies of all Kinds 



447-449 Wabash Ave. 

Chicago 



76-100 Pearl Street 

New Yor 



World's Greatest Meat Cutter 



LATEST IMPROVED 



Sanitary "Bnffalo" Ball-Bearing Silent Catter 




Cjreat time ana laoor 
saver. Used i>y nearly 
all tae large packers 
and tkousanJs of 
Dutcners tnrougK-' 
ovit the -w^orld 

JOHNUMITH'SSONSCO, 

BUFFALO, N. Y. 





They Save Time and Money 

BOSS Jerkless Hog Hoist 

BOSS Steel Hog Scraper 

BOSS Hog Head Splitter 

BOSS Trolley Conveyor 

BOSS Safety Switches 

BOSS Crimped Steel Hangers 

BOSS Cold Storage and Roller Doors 

BOSS Smoke-house Equipments 

BOSS Belly Roller 

BOSS Back Fat Skinner 

BOSS Lard Cooling Cylinders 

BOSS Lard Coolers and Agitators 

BOSS Hydraulic Lard Presses 

BOSS Silent Meat Cutters 

BOSS Meat Mixers 

BOSS Steam and Pneumatic Stuffers 

BOSS Cattle Knocking Pens 

BOSS Beef Hoists and Droppers 

Beauty Refrigerators and Fixtures 

Sanitary Rendering and Drying Tank 



O 



(5 

J Q. 
£ CO 



o 

z 

o 

< 
Z 
Z 

o 

z 



as 



t3 
O 

© ^ 



(Q 



0) 
S 

!E 
o 

S Ml 



O 

z 



u 

3 
Z 
UJ 

> 

(X 

Z 
u 
O 

00 

o 
o 

CM 
I 

(0 

00 

0> 



THE BRE 




GUS. V. BRECHT BUTCHERS' SUPPLY CO., Inc. 
Established 1853 



Manufacturers of all Machinery 
and Apparatus for 

"HANDLING THE HOG FROM START 
TO FINISH" 



Main Offices and Factories: 

St. Louis, l^o. 

DENVER NEW YORK HAMBURG BUENOS AIRES 



DO YOU WANT TO 

read all the news of the meat trade interestingly 
told and cleverly written, a meat paper that is of 
real benefit to you in your business? 
DO YOU WANT to feel entitled to call upon it for any sort of 
information about meat markets, packing houses 
and anything pertaining to them? 

DO YOU WANT to know how the meat inspection laws are being 
enforced and thus avoid difficulties? 

DO YOU WANT a meat paper that represents the entire trade, 
not one particular branch or part of it? 

DO YOU WANT to know what everybody else is doing, so you 
can profit by their success or avoid the methods 
that led to failure? 

Then read the BUTCHERS ADVOCATE; costs 
$2.00 a year, or less than four cents a week. 

BUTCHERS ADVOCATE CO. 

203 BROADWAY NEW YORK 



ALLBRIGHT-NELL CO. 



CHICAGO, ILL., U.S.A. 



Experts in Machinery for the 
Manufacture of LARD and Lard 
Compound. 




Consult us on Everythin, 



After you have "finished with the hog" you will have more or less 

Tankwater 

from which the solids should be recovered. The amount of tank- 
water produced averages 5 gallons per hog, containing 2/^ pounds 
solids. These solids after recovery will run from 15 to 16% 
ammonia, and are worth over $30.00 per ton. 



€1, Any house producing upwards of 3,000 gallons of 
tankwater daily should install a Double Effect Evaporator 
for the manufacture of concentrated tankage. Such an 
equipment will pay for itself in less than a year. It is 
important that the apparatus should be of the simplest 
type possible both as concerns operation and mainte- 
nance. These requirements are excellently fulfilled by the 

Zaremba Patent Evaporator 

which combines the proved results of old practice with 
the latest and best improvements. This machine is built 
for long life and hard service and can be depended upon 
to run with a minimum amount of attention and repairs. 



d. Inquiries in regard to our specialty or concerning the 
TANKWATER PROPOSITION in general should be ad- 
dressed to 

ZAREMBA CO. 

ELLICOTT SQ. - BUFFALO. N. Y. 





A complete treatise on the Designing, Construction, Equipment 
and Operation of a Modern Packing House and Abattoir, accord- 
ing to present American practice, including Formulas for the 
Manufacture of Lard and Sausage, the Curing of Meats, and 
Methods of Converting By-Products into Commercial Articles. 
Bound in cloth, $10.00 ; bound in full morocco, $12.00. Sent pre- 
paid to any address on receipt of price. 




This hook covers every phase of Inspection and of the Condition 
of Meat. It also tells you how to detect disease in animals on 
the hoof. Every meat inspector, health officer, wholesale or retail 
butcher should have one. It is the best book of the kind ever 
published. It is exhaustive, authoritative and well illustrated. 
Sent postpaid to any address for $7.50. 




A practical manual of modern methods of utilization of fats and 
oils in the Manufacture of Soap and Candles, and the recovery 
of Glycerine. Raw Materials of Soap Manufacture— Bleaching 
and Purification of Stock— Chemical Characteristics of Soap Stock 
—Mechanical Equipment of Soap Factory— Cold Process and Semi- 
Boiled Soap— Grained Soap— Household Soap— Floating Soap- 
Shaving Soap. All about Candle Making. Bound in cloth. Sent 
postpaid to any address on receipt of price, $7.50. 



The Butchers Advocate Co. 

203 BROADWAY NEW YORK 



GEHRET 



s 




Adjustable carriage for hams 



Smokehouse door 




Makers of 

Labor Saving 
Devices 



for 



Floor for smokehouse 




Packing Houses 



STRUCTURAL, CAST AND 
PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL 
WROUGHT IRON AND 
WIRE WORK OF EVERY 
DESCRIPTION 

WRITE FOR CATALOGUE 

BRIDGEPORT 

Montgomery Connty, Pa. 



Labor-saving racks 




American Lard Pails 

We are the largest manufacturers of Lard Pails in 
the country and have unequalled facilities for turning 
out pails in large quantities and of the best quality. 

PLAIN TIN OR LITHOGRAPHED PAILS OF 
ANY SHAPE OR DESCRIPTION. 

Fifteen factories making Packers' Pails 
are a guarantee of a sure supply. 



American Can Company 



New York 



Chicago 



San Francisco 



Local Offices in all Large Cities 



Jlil 28 1910 



One copy del. to Cat. Div, 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



018 448 766 4 



■ .r,' ■. :'l..|<;'i'./«i-"V 






||ppi;';-'^'4tiJ^ 












